Custom Robo: Vehemence
by RPMercenary
Summary: The ultimate Robo has been unleashed, and after escaping a large-scale attack at the Science Facility, its commander's enemies regroup and prepare for a counter-attack. Sequel to Custom Robo: Ultimatum.
1. Introduction and Chapter 1: Morning

Custom Robo: Vehemence

(This is the sequel to Custom Robo Ultimatum, another of my fanfics on this site. Please read that before reading this or be content with being thoroughly confused)

Introduction

All was quiet in the underground facility, aside from a distant hum of machinery. Fletch, Kip, Jay, and Nick were all asleep, locked in their own rooms supposedly for their safety, according to Ronnie. Fletch had been unsure about Ronnie's reasoning, but agreed nonetheless. As far as he was concerned, Ronnie was the only one any of them could trust at the moment.

In the middle of the night, Fletch heard a set of three knocks on his door. He woke up fairly slowly, wondering if he had really heard it. It came again, and he said "Yes?" loud enough to hear outside the door, not wanting to get out of bed.

A female voice not familiar to him responded, "Can I come in?"

Fletch sat up with a grunt, "Who is it?"

"My name is Lyre. Can I come in? I need to talk to you."

Fletch had not heard the voice before, but there was something familiar about it. "I can't unlock the door, what do you need?"

"Oh, are they all like that?"

"Yes, we were locked in for safety. Sorry." He had already begun to analyze her voice and tone to try and figure out why she suddenly sounded familiar. He had not heard the voice itself before, but the confidence with which she spoke made her sound tomboyish. "What do you need to talk about?" He waited for a few seconds, but there was no response. She was gone.

Fletch racked his mind trying to make a connection. Why did she sound so familiar? Her voice was completely new to him, but the way she spoke, her confidence, her vocal inflections and accents…

Then it hit him like a flash of a strobe-light. Her voice was different, but Lyre's tone was exactly like his own.

((I will iterate again, read Custom Robo: Ultimatum before reading this story! I don't want any reviews telling me to set the scene better!))

Chapter 1: Morning

Ronnie came around in the morning and unlocked all the doors. "Good morning everyone. I trust you all slept well?"

The first thing Fletch noticed was that Ronnie was wearing a navy-blue outfit with a few yellow stripes and a yellow "R" over the heart. Fletch recognized it as the same outfit that Strike and his henchmen had been wearing when they tried to stop them from escaping the Science Facility Dome.

Jay rubbed his eyes, "Given our condition, I'd say that was the best sleep I've ever had."

Fletch looked over at him, "Jay, you told me you don't sleep."

Jay looked back, his hand still rubbing one eye, "I said that?"

Ronnie spoke out again, "You are all welcome to join us for breakfast, then I'll show you around. If you'll please follow me."

Ronnie began guiding them down the hallways. Fletch heard a voice in his head from Jay, "I saw what happened last night. With Lyre and all." Fletch looked over his shoulder. Jay had his hand on Kip's shoulder to merge their powers and communicate.

Fletch thought back, "Who is she?"

Jay responded, "You're going to have to ask Ronnie. She had the most scrambled and scattered thought patterns I've ever seen. I couldn't make anything of her thoughts. But you came to the right conclusion. She was acting just like you would if she was you."

"I'll ask Ronnie if he doesn't get around to that while showing us around." Ronnie pushed open a door, and they all entered a large room with several long tables where no more than a hundred people were already seated and eating or in line for food. The only familiar faces were Wade and Otto. Everyone in the room was wearing the same navy-blue outfits with a yellow stripe that Ronnie was. It must have been the generic outfit for both factions of the syndicate. What apparently set the members apart were their wristbands, just like in Strike's part of the Syndicate. Ronnie was the only one in the room with a red wristband. Wade, Otto, and a few others that Fletch assumed were higher ranked were wearing mint green bands. There were a few other scattered colors, some blue, some silver, and some medium greens, but most of the wristbands in the room were yellow, which Fletch guessed meant no special rank.

Ronnie said to Fletch, Nick, Jay, and Kip, "The line for food is over there. Don't worry about being the only ones here in civilian clothes. You will not be bothered."

"Really?" Jay said as they walked over to the line. He had an idea, in that case.

Fletch, Nick, and Kip got in the back of the line, but Jay quickly cut in line near the front. The Loyalist he had cut in front of put his arms out to the side, and said, "Hey, man, what the heck?"

Kip was there fairly quickly and grabbed Jay by the ear, by which she pulled him out of the line and to the back with them, "I don't think that's what Ronnie meant, Jay," she said to him.

"Well it was worth a try," Jay said, disappointed.

Kip shook her head and said "No, it wasn't."

Once they had gotten their food, they sat down with Ronnie, Wade, Otto, and two other people with mint wristbands that they did not know, one male, one female. As they started on their food, Ronnie was quick to introduce the two other officers. "Fletch, this is Lynx, our systems manager," Ronnie indicated the male Loyalist, who had very dark purple hair that spiked downward and eyeglasses. Lynx bowed his head as he was introduced. "And this is Skyler, our Robo technician." Skyler had longer mint green hair that matched her wristband.

"Nice to meet you all," Skyler said.

The other four would have responded, but their mouths were full. They were all pretty hungry.

Ronnie waited a moment, then saw they were too focused on their food to respond, so he said to Skyler and Lynx, "Well, I guess we don't need to go into too much detail on your jobs here. We'll be stopping by your work zones later. As soon as you're done eating, you can go back to work."

Lynx nodded between bites, "That's the plan."

Skyler was already finished and stood up. "Well, I'll see all of you later on then." She put her tray on a conveyor belt at the end of the room and left to go back to work.

Fletch swallowed and said, "Ronnie, with as much as we are trusting you and working with you, we still have no real knowledge about what is going on. We don't know anything about this syndicate, so before we go around seeing everything, do you think you can give us some basic background on how all this came to be and why this is happening?"

Ronnie nodded and began explaining.

The R-Syndicate was started several years ago. It was created by a small group of lawbreakers of different ages who were all on the run from the police and bounty hunters. Some were even former bounty hunters themselves. We all knew what was going to happen to us if we were caught: The same thing that happened to everyone else. Our memories would be erased and we would be reintroduced into society with a new memory without criminal tendencies.

But the ones who started R-Syndicate had a different opinion than the rest of society about this solution. Rather than having their memory erased, they felt they would be more useful to society if they were able to keep the pain of their guilt and reflect on it to better think their lives through. They had all vowed to not break the law again, the weight of their guilt was hard on them, and they had no desire to add to it even more. That guilt is what would keep them in line, and losing their memory would only eliminate the new line of thought that they had developed. But given the zero-tolerance society we live in now, there was no way they could petition for a pardon. The options for any criminal were to lose their memory or go into hiding and remain on the run as long as they could. There was no idle forgiveness available.

So this said group of individuals decided on a solution. Since their values were not enough to gain forgiveness, they decided they would go into hiding and find a way to seek some form of redemption. So they formed this syndicate as an organization for people seeking redemption for their crimes so that they may move back into society maintaining their morality and keeping themselves within the boundaries of the law by the memory of their past and their willingness to bear that responsibility.

We began small, with three of us as the primary leaders: Myself, Fletch, and Strike. We started gaining more members, and when Ray came to us, we became aware of commanders' unique powers. He was able to tell people what their powers are, and he was a great asset to us. Wade came, and he was a very talented Robo trainer. All our commanders became more talented Robo battlers. We ended up growing very large, and it became problematic. Some of our members had forgotten our central reason for forming. They wanted to take us to a full fledged crime syndicate. We had the numbers, the strength, the organization, and the leadership. That was when we realized we had strayed from our purpose.

Our leadership that was still loyal to our beliefs had to come up with a solution. We decided that the many members who were out of touch with our core beliefs had to be dealt with, and much as we hated to do it, we decided that the best course of action for our safety was to steal the memory erasure device that was used to treat criminals who were caught. We planned to use it on our members that were close to going rogue as it was. However, Slash, who you know as Tyson, was there when we made that decision. He leaked the information to Strike. We had left him out of the meeting because we knew he had changed since the beginning. He seemed to be the one taking charge of the less-resolved of the syndicate.

The night we moved to take the memory erasure device, Strike led a similar mission with the same objective, only he brought many more with him to do it. Fletch was the one we sent to retrieve the device while we dealt with the police, but something must have gone wrong, because by the time we came to rejoin him, the device was gone and so was he. We still don't know what happened. When we returned to our base, we found the members in open war. We did what we could to round up as many of the loyal members as possible, but we knew we couldn't defeat all of the opposition. There were just too many. We withdrew with only about twenty or so of our members.

Apollo, as you know, was our public contact under cover as a Robo repairman and technician, so we came to him and told him what had happened. He allowed us to hide out in his shop while we created a new base. Other members that were loyal to our beliefs and who had escaped separately from the rest came to him as well over the next several days, and our Loyalist faction was formed. We now have around 75 members. I know several loyal members in particular that we have not seen since that one battle, and we fear they may have had their memories erased and converted to Strike's side, or worse.

So since then we have been hidden. Wade, Otto, and myself were able to pass as bounty hunters and we formed Darclaw as a false Bounty Hunting team so that we could be on the surface, looking for recruits. But by now, I believe that our cover in that regard is blown, so there is no need for us to continue our act as bounty hunters. We were very lucky to finally find Fletch through it. We did not recognize him when he came to us, and his name had changed too. Many of the bounties we have claimed were on people that we have given another chance to by allowing them to join us in our quest for redemption, and we have also discovered how to obtain it. However, I will allow Lyre to explain that part when you meet her.

Jay, Fletch, Kip, and Nick had finished their breakfast and were listening when Ronnie concluded. Fletch said, "Uh, I do have one comment regarding that, I've already met Lyre. She came by my room last night and-"

Ronnie finished for him, "And tried to get in?"

Fletch was silent for a moment, then said, "Yes. Who exactly is she?"

Ronnie smiled and stood up, "I'll explain everything about her when we go to meet her. I'll let her do some explaining as well. If you all are done, you can put your dishes over there and we'll be on our way.


	2. Chapter 2: Scientist's Struggle

Chapter 2: Scientist's Struggle

We were gathered in a research room at the Science Dome. We had been put in there for holding by our own security guards. We had no idea what was going on. Our Robos had been confiscated, and there were maybe 30 of us under guard, all scientists, trapped in this room. There were not this few scientists in the facility, I knew that much. The rest were probably in other holding rooms. Outside we had heard shouting and people running down the halls an hour ago, but now all was quiet. There were two guards outside the door and one in the room with us at the entrance as well. The door was locked anyway. There was nothing any of us could do but wait.

But something came to me. I don't know what it was. It was like a thought was trying to be heard from the back of my head, but was too quiet. I could sense it there, but could not tell what it was trying to tell me. I tried my best to stop thinking of anything else so I could discern what I guess my instinct was trying to tell me. All of a sudden, it became more pronounced. I could almost HEAR what I could have sworn felt like someone else thinking for me. The more I tried to clear my own thoughts, the more thoughts seemed to appear in my head, and it felt so much like they were my own, but being generated from somewhere else.

They were telling me what I needed to do. And I felt, so deeply, that they were trying to help.

"Clear your mind so I can help you…"

"What?" another scientist asked. Apparently I had whispered it aloud.

"N-nothing…" I said.

I did my best to calm down and let these thoughts come to me, wherever they were from. The thoughts returned, "You are the closest to the door. You are the one who can save the rest."

There was a silence in my mind, then it returned, "The guard will look away in a few seconds. When he does, get up quickly and move to attack him. I will help guide you." Normally I would have assumed I was just going crazy, but it did not seem like that at all. I had never hurt anybody before, and I knew nothing of hand-to-hand combat. I was just a scientist. But, as predicted, the guard turned his head towards the door as if he had heard a noise, though I had not heard anything. I took the opportunity and started to stand. The second I had moved, everything started happening faster than I could perceive.

I know that the first move I made was a punch for his Robo cube, but I was being propelled by something outside of my own mind. I could not even tell what I was doing. Everything was blurred, I could sense rapid movement and contact on several points, so I knew I was doing something, I just couldn't tell what, and when I finally regained focus, I fell to my knees. The guard fell to the floor with a loud flop. I gasped when I saw him. His neck had obviously been broken, and his nose appeared so as well. But had I really just done that? And in the course of two seconds?

I was short of breath, my heart was pounding, and everyone else in the room was astonished. Most of them knew me and knew I had never done, or even practiced, anything like that before. But regardless, I had executed some attack flawlessly without thinking about it or planning on it. I had not even known what I was doing. I was certain now that external beneficent forces were at work.

The thoughts returned, and I reactively blanked my mind to listen to them. "Hit the door with your palm twice. When the door opens, move to attack the guards outside. Again, I will guide you."

I gulped. All eyes in the room were on me, but nobody said a word. I said to them, "Don't worry, we're going to be ok." I understood that if we all died, it would not matter that the statement was a lie, so I may as well be encouraging. Some of the other scientists began to stand as well, but they quickly sat back down on the floor when I hit the door with my open hand twice. They did not understand what I was doing. The door started to open.

I took a step back to allow the door to open more, and then everything blurred again. I felt myself throw my full weight against the door, but other than that, my own movements and actions were too rapid for myself to perceive. There was a door opening, a reach, a turn, I couldn't make sense of it. The only thing I could make out was several distinct cracks. Then everything suddenly shifted back into focus, my back was to the door. I looked back at the opening, and saw the two guards that had been outside. One was lying against the wall, not moving. I could not tell if he was dead or just unconscious. The other guard was lying on his back in the doorway, eyes wide open and gasping for breath. The cracks I had heard must have been his ribs.

Again, I was shocked as much as anyone else in the room. I could not concentrate, the external thoughts were blocked out, I had too many of my own rushing through my head. My hands trembled and I sank to my knees again. Another scientist got up and came over to me, trying to calm me down, "Calm down, calm down…. You did great…" or something like that. I just nodded. Did they not understand that I had just committed one of the most unforgivable crimes in existence? Harming someone outside of a Robo battle was an unspeakable offense, and I had just done it to three people without a second thought and without even knowing I had done it.

"What have I done….?" I barely managed to stammer.

Someone else stood up and seemed to take charge, "We need to pull them in here so they won't be found by the others."

Another scientist stood up, "We can arm ourselves with unregistered Robo cubes down the hall, then add upgrades and weapons at the development department."

Yet another stood up, "Then we can find the other scientists and free them, and we can take back the facility." I knew somehow that they were experiencing the same phenomenon that I had. The external thoughts were sending messages to them now. They were now chosen to lead us to freedom. I was not ready to take that role. I smiled in relief. Now we had a chance.

Several of them worked together to pull the guards into the room. They didn't seem to care about the well-being of the one that was still conscious and breathing laboriously. I couldn't stand to look.

One of the scientists said, "Watch out for more guards. I don't think any of them are on our side."

I felt I had to say something. I didn't want anyone else to get hurt . "Wait!... Don't do what I did… Please, don't harm anyone physically… I can't wish that on anyone," I pleaded. Several of them looked to each other, then a few nodded in agreement. They understood. Someone helped me to my feet and I managed to stand without support.

The hallway was clear. My activities had not been noticed. I looked up at the security cameras, and saw that they were not operating. What was going on?

We moved as a group to the room where we could get unregistered Robo cubes which we could use at least until we could find our own. It was unguarded, fortunately. This room had no equipment or machinery; it was merely a storage room for new models and experimental Robos. We started arming ourselves with them. I noticed a particular model that I had recently helped design and that I was quite fond of. It was a Burning Beast model Robo that did not have a name yet. I would have to think of one for it later.

I registered it to myself with the eye scan. "Now we need weapons for them. If we move as a group, we can take on any guards that stand between us and the development zone with Standard weapons." It sounded like a plan. Superior numbers and weapons, as well as brand new Robos would make freeing the other scientists and taking back the facility much easier.

Development was a little ways off from our location, but with 30 of us all armed with Robos, fighting our way there wouldn't be a problem.

-Sarah "Wings" Colligan  
-Research and Development Sub-Manager, RoboSci


	3. Chapter 3: Loyalist Facility

Chapter 3: Loyalist Facility

All of the loyalists in the dining room were putting their trays away and exiting to go to work. Ronnie and Lynx were still at the table with Fletch, Jay, Kip, and Nick, and they were all ready to move on. Ronnie said to Lynx, "I'm taking them to the Ops Center first, Lynx, so we'll accompany you there."

Lynx nodded, "That's fine. And you're positive they're all trustworthy?"

Ronnie cast a look at Jay, as if pondering about him. Jay folded his arms, "Oh stop it. It doesn't take a mind reader to know you're not serious."

Ronnie replied to Lynx, "I'm not certain about one, but the others vouch for him, so we'll be ok."

Jay sighed and put his face in his hand, "No respect, I swear."

Lynx nodded, "All right then. Follow me."

He took them out into the hallway and only a short way down it to mechanized door. It opened automatically as they approached, and Lynx led them in.

There were no overhead lights in this room. In front of them was a wide glass wall. Behind it, they could see the Ops Center. There were screens over the top of the far wall, probably linked to security cameras. There were probably eight loyalists working at different stations, each with their own computer. The floor was lit dimly with faint blue lights, but other than those and the lights from the screens or lit buttons, the room was dark. Nick looked around and commented, "You certainly give it an ominous tone." Lynx grinned and led them forward towards the glass. Fletch looked to either side and noticed there were two more doors that led back out to the main facility, one on either side. The paths from all three doors converged in front of a glass door in the middle of the glass wall keeping the command center secure.

Lynx put his hand on the glass, and the area under where he touched glowed a faint green for a second, then faded and the glass door opened. Ronnie explained as they walked in, "This is our Operations Center. From here, we keep an eye on the outside world. We can link these screens to security systems within the facility, the dome city in which we are based, and just about any other system that we can establish a link to. Most are not connected to a universal network, but we can access them by going there and creating a remote transmission, which we have done frequently. If the system is not very secure, then in some cases we can take partial control of their entire system controls."

Fletch looked around, "So… you could spy in on the Science Dome from here?"

Ronnie looked to Lynx, who said to his operators in the room, "Is the Science Dome still down?"

One of them affirmed, "Yes sir. Their security station is probably powered down, so we can't get our eyes in there."

Ronnie shook his head, "Strike has cut us off from it. There's nothing we can do there." Fletch nodded. Ronnie continued, "Well, let's move on then. Lynx, keep searching for the Original Syndicate. Let me know if you spot any of them." Lynx nodded.

As the group turned for the door, one of the operators notified Lynx, "Sir, I think I found them."

Ronnie turned back to face the screens, and Lynx ordered, "Bring it on the main screen." All of the small screens on the wall disappeared and in their place appeared one larger image that looked like the tunnel to a Metro Station. Approximately 20 R-Syndicate members, easily distinguished by their uniforms, were occupying the entrance. The ability to see any more was obscured by the limited visibility into the station. "Where is this?" Lynx asked the operator, who answered, "Here."

"If they're moving on such a populated dome city in broad daylight wearing their syndicate uniforms, it means they're confident, which means Strike is probably with them," Ronnie said. He tapped something on his shoulder, opening an intercom channel to the entire facility, "Wade, call all combat squads to a battle-ready standby formation. Officers prepare your teams for their combat roles. Guards on duty, remain at your posts. This is not a drill. Move."

Lynx immediately complied and addressed his staff, "Let's set this place up for battle command. Put all monitors on this city's security system. Station one, set up the battle communication system for the officers and squad leaders. Station two, get to work accessing system functions of the Robo production facility in this dome city. Get me a list of all functions you can control as soon as possible. Station three…"

While Lynx was calling out assignments, Fletch watched the main monitor image of the Metro Station access tunnel, and he saw Strike appear through the crowd of his minions. Strike signaled back towards the tunnel, and four more syndicate members came up behind him, each supporting a side of a big white box. Fletch looked to Ronnie for an explanation, but Ronnie was as confused as Fletch, watching the monitor as well. As they watched, the box was set down and Strike opened the top of it. The four sides fell away to show some sort of device inside. It consisted of a small base, a cube-shaped center with a control panel on the side, and on top was a wide dome.

Lynx was just finishing calling out the last station assignment, "Station eight, set up for a situational report and keep track of all our units' locations and battles."

Ronnie got Lynx's attention and pointed up at the device on the screen, which Strike was tinkering with. Lynx looked for a second, "Can any station identify what we're looking at?" He was met with silence from all his staff.

Suddenly, the lights dimmed for a brief moment, then everything seemed to turn to a blinding brightness. Nobody could see anything, but they all felt a strange pulse in their blindness. Slowly, everybody's vision cleared. Fletch looked right back up at the screen, and was baffled by what he saw. Where there had been R-Syndicate members before, now there stood Robos. And where Strike had been, everyone watching the screen saw Strike's larger Ultimatum Robo standing head and shoulders above the others around.

All Fletch could think was how impossible it was that they could dive into their Robos without a holoseum, and then enlarge them to life size, deployed in the real world. It was just not possible. "What did… How did they do that?"

Ronnie said to him, "I don't know, but it wasn't just them."

Fletch looked at him, but was taken aback when he saw that Ronnie was deployed into his Splendor Robo as well. He looked at Jay, Nick, and Kip. Nick and Kip were in their Robos as well, but Jay was still himself, unchanged, both of them looking as astounded as Fletch. Ronnie tapped his shoulder again to communicate, but his Robo did not have the same com device in Robo form. Ronnie sought out another method of communication, "Station one, is the communication network up?" He received a nod. "Set an open channel for the entire base."

The station operator did a few things with his computer, then said, "Channel open, sir."

Ronnie addressed the whole base, "We're on an open base channel. The Ops Center staff has been turned into our Robo forms, all stations report your status." He waited as the base reported in, one station at a time.

Wade came through first, "The same has happened in the formation hall. Everyone in here is a Robo."

Skyler came through, "Only a few of us at the tech shop have experienced this, the others are still in human form."

A voice Fletch did not know reported, "Dining staff reports all normal, no transformations here."

Another unfamiliar voice, "This is the Library guard, we've not been transformed, but we have a situation regardless."

Ronnie commanded, "Put all 4 library cameras on the main screen." Four screens came up, but three of them showed nothing but static. The fourth showed a door with two guards by it, one was by the intercom system. "All three internal library cameras are down, what going on down there?"

The doors on the monitor shuddered, as if hit from the other side. The guard by the intercom panel reported, "We're not exactly sure, but Lyre is trying to break down the doors, and she's hitting pretty hard. I didn't know she was that strong."

Fletch watched Ronnie's face and saw that he had come to a sudden realization of something and his expression went from serious to somewhat terrified.

It didn't take Jay long to read Ronnie's mind and analyze the situation. "Ronnie, pull your men out of there, I'll handle it," Jay said as he turned and ran for the door.

"Jay, you can't fight her!" Ronnie called to him.

"I read your mind, I know what to do! Just get that thing out there shut down. I'll handle Lyre." Nobody else could protest before the door closed behind Jay.

Ronnie turned to Fletch and Kip, "Does he know what he's doing?"

Fletch looked to Kip, since she probably knew Jay better than he did. She nodded, "He won't put us in any danger."

Ronnie nodded and responded to the guards, "Library guards, withdraw and retrieve your Robo cubes. Join the others in the formation hall."

Nick was trying to figure things out, "Why do the guards down there not have their cubes?"

Ronnie answered, "Because it is unsafe for anyone to be near Lyre with a Robo cube. I'll explain later." He went back to the open channel, "Wade, do we have weapons available?"

Wade responded, "Negative. We don't have any equipped, and the weapon station pods are not activated. We're all unarmed."

"Move to the surface and engage hostile Robos invading the dome. I'll meet you up there shortly. Good luck everyone. Ops center out." The channel was closed and Lynx started directing the ops center staff. Ronnie turned and headed for the door, "Fletch, Kip, and Nick, you're with me."

With Ronnie's back turned, Fletch raised an eyebrow and gave a very sarcastic salute. He started to follow Ronnie, then heard a loud gasp from Kip and her Robo's knees hitting the floor. He turned and saw her kneeling, her hands over her mouth, and her eyes wide in shock. Her gaze was fixed on the video feed that was still on the main screen. The door to the library had been broken open, Jay was standing in front of it with his hands raised, and in the doorway stood the unmistakable figure of Rahu, staring Jay right in the eyes.


	4. Chapter 4: Scientist Liberation

Chapter 4: Scientist Liberation

Science Dome, 3:00 AM

I guess the reason I chose this Robo was due to my nickname: "Wings". It was a unique Burning Beast model that was reminiscent of an angel. It looked like one of the older Ray models, but sleeker, and with large wings on its back. I was the one who created a silent operating artificial intelligence for the Robo, and as we moved to the development zone of the dome, I got to finally see it in action. It was made to work cooperatively with the user and aid in all of the functions of the Robo, allowing it to be run when minimal mental resources are available. That means I could still use it effectively in combat if I was close to unconsciousness, exhausted, or if I had other things to focus on. And that's to say nothing of when it has my full concentration and complete mental clarity available.

The AI is made to work with the multiple built-in features on the Robo. The Robo has several different types of visual tracking systems, which allows for very high accuracy with AI assistance. The feet have sensors on the bottom which can sense anything that is putting pressure on the ground anywhere in the holoseum. The AI can use the pressure readings to predict enemy movements quickly and react accordingly. The wings, in addition to the obvious airborne advantages, act as a countermeasure to weapon attacks. While they do not deflect or redirect any attacks, they can detect them, and the AI can dodge accordingly. The system is the closest thing to an autonomous Robo without being fully automated.

I fell in love with it when I got to battle with it to liberate the development zone. The four guards there were no match for the 30 of us, and we took the area easily. There were at least 15 more scientists there, and all of the computers were untouched, which meant we could freely download weapons from the development database. While the newly liberated scientists got Robos, the rest of us plugged our cubes in and began copying weapons over. I selected ones that I had helped develop and was familiar with. The AI system would adapt to them and bring out their potential. Several of them were still in experimental phases, and in some cases that just meant they had not been reduced to legal boundaries, just like my Robo, but that was not a concern for any of us at that point.

I unplugged my cube from the computer and began discussing with my colleagues what our next move should be. We decided that we were not a large enough force to split up quite yet, so we chose to try and locate more groups of scientists and free them to expand our force. Nobody had counted, but we were already 40 to 45 strong, all well-equipped. We guessed that the next most populated place would be the tech lab, so we made our way there as a group.

We encountered a few guards on the way there, but the battles with them were not notable or even long enough to recount. We were a virtually unstoppable force. Upon entering the tech lab, we were surprised to see that there were no scientists hostage, but in place of scientists that would normally be working there, there were men in navy blue outfits with a yellow stripe, and they seemed to be doing the work our scientists normally do. They were at the test stations, making notes, and tinkering with the testing and experimental equipment. Once we were noticed in the entrance, though, they dropped what they were doing and formed up to oppose us. We advanced towards them so that we could all get through the door. Once everyone was in the room, we stopped and glared at the intruders.

There was silence for a brief moment, then one of them, who was rather tall and intimidating, stepped forward and dropped something on the ground between our group and theirs. I quickly recognized it as a portable large-scale holoseum. Rather than fight us in individual battles, it appeared that they wanted to fight us as a unified group. I activated my Robo cube, and so did the apparent leader of the opposition. My group followed suit, and so did his. Everyone dove into the holoseum without a word, and the battle began.

I selected my new weapons according to my anticipation of my Robo's AI ability to utilize them. In my right hand, I chose a "Disk" gun. It launches a single disk of energy that can curve to hit multiple enemies, and can move through some obstacles without damaging them. The gun keeps the next disk to be launched mounted on the top of the wrist, so it can be used as a shield against small-ordinance attacks. In my left hand, I equipped an "Electron" bomb launcher. I considered it unfair, but that is what comes with being experimental, not to mention that fairness was the least of my concerns. It fires in a straight line, initially detects all targets within blast radius of its path, and detonates when it can affect the most enemies. The blast is not explosive, but electronic, disabling any Robos in the immediate area for a good amount of time.

Due to the experimental nature of my Robo, not to mention the wings on the back, I could not select a pod, but I was happy enough with my wings. The legs I selected were "Kick" legs. They are designed to improve the ability to use the feet as weapons in combat. There is no descent augmentation per say, but there is still a similar type of jet in its place that makes a quick, powerful burst when the foot makes hard impact with anything, allowing it to double as a boosted jump.

At first it seemed like we had not gone anywhere. The holoseum was designed identically to the tech lab, which was fairly large. Everything was in its place as it was in the real world. When I noticed that everyone was Robos, I understood we were just in a holoseum designed to mimic the surrounding area. But this rendition of it was surprisingly accurate.

Everyone deployed in their exact positions they had been in before they dove. Our opposition was obviously more tactically trained than us, which is not a factor we had considered. They all immediately jumped away from our group and took cover behind equipment, walls, or desks that they overturned. Our larger group of less trained commanders immediately advanced and opened a large hail of fire on them, not bothering to take cover.

Many of the weapons that my allies were using were large explosion weapons, multi-target seekers, or debris dispersal weapons. Under a hail of such firepower, the overturned desks did not stand much of a chance. I couldn't see through the cloud of explosions that had formed between our two sides, but I remedied that by switching to my X-Ray visual system, which displayed only physical objects and what was behind them, allowing me to see through non physical obstructions like clouds, and through some physical walls as well. I could see several of our enemies taking cover behind sturdier obstacles, waiting for the firestorm to subside. I fired my disk gun at each one, and the disks of energy passed through all obstacles to hit them each in the head for critical damage.

I had expected our opponents to have some advantage from their probable combat training, but our overpowered weapons seemed to be more than a match for any tactics they might have used, if given the opportunity. My system was not picking up any more enemy movement, so I switched back to my normal visual mode. We thought it was over, but then another Robo activated in front of us. It was the taller person that was the apparent leader of the enemy group, he had just waited or had been delayed in entering the holoseum.

He stood up, and I was stunned. I recognized his Robo as the Ray-UM Ultimatum that had been stolen the night before. He had to have been the one who stole it, which would explain all the chaos that had occurred that day. His goals apparently did not stop at obtaining the ultimate Robo, he wanted the vast technological power of the science dome.

I had been on the development team that designed the Ultimatum's damage absorption system, and I was well aware of its power. I had helped make it nearly invincible, and never guessed I would be facing it in battle. I looked around at my fellow scientists. We outnumbered him 45 to 1, we all had brand new experimental Robos, most of them not yet legal, and we all had overpowered weapons that were just as illegal to use as our Robos. And sadly enough, we didn't stand a chance.

Sarah "Wings" Colligan

Research and Development Sub-Manager, RoboSci


	5. Chapter 5: Street Access

((Though I said at the beginning of Custom Robo: Ultimatum that the story is best understood if you have played the Custom Robo game for Gamecube, I also promised that it is a good read if you have not. Therefore, since I ended Chapter 3 with a mention of Rahu, I feel that I owe an explanation for the readers who are not familiar with the Gamecube game. Readers who have played can skip this explanation and proceed to the chapter.

Rahu is the final "Boss" of the Gamecube game. It is by no means human, but it can still take combative form in a Robo holoseum. The history is that Rahu is an entity of unknown origin that virtually brought the world to an apocalypse single-handedly a very long time ago. It was unopposed until Custom Robos were used to combat it, and it was finally stopped, but the entire world was left in complete ruin. All natural life was destroyed and only a handful of humans survived. The human survivors created a large city enclosed by a dome, to block them out from the destroyed world, which, over time, was forgotten. Rahu returns in the Gamecube game, set many years after the initial apocalyptic episode, so it becomes apparent that Rahu cannot be killed, but it disappears for a long time whenever it is defeated. The full nature of Rahu is not known, but history shows that over a long period of time, Rahu will indeed return.

I probably cannot put into words how fear-instilling Rahu is to these people, but let us just say that the mere sight of Rahu on a screen at the end of Chapter 3 is a terrifying experience for Kip.))

Chapter 5: Street Access

Kip was paralyzed with fear at what she saw on the screen. Fletch, though not falling to his knees as Kip had, was just as astonished, and Nick was hardly any different. The three of them could not take their widened eyes off the screen until Ronnie caught their attention, "Fletch! Get her on her feet! We need to move!"

Fletch did his best to collect himself and put his hand under Kip's shoulder to help her up, "Come on, Kip, get it together, we need to go!"

Kip stammered, "B-but what ab-about Jay?"

"He'll be fine, he knows what he's doing, let's go!" Fletch looked at Nick, who was actually managing to blink. "Nick, go with Ronnie, we'll be right behind you." Kip stood with Fletch's help, and even though they were in Robo form, Fletch could feel her trembling.

Before heading for the room's exit, Ronnie directed to Lynx, "Keep a feed dedicated to that camera. Contact me if anything happens." Lynx nodded.

Fletch managed to get Kip to look away and they both followed Nick and Ronnie out of the door of the Ops Center. Fletch looked over his shoulder at the screen one more time. Jay and Rahu were staring at each other, neither one moving an inch. Jay had his hands in front of him, palms towards Rahu, but Fletch could not exactly figure out how he was keeping Rahu from moving. He then looked more closely at Rahu. Since Fletch's memory of any specific images he might have seen had been erased, he could not compare any memories with what he was seeing at the time, but he was able to at least recognize that it was not exactly the same Rahu that he would have pictured. It was like it was missing something.

"Fletch, let's move it!" Nick snapped Fletch out of it, and the three of them followed behind Ronnie.

Rather than coming out the entrance through Apollo's shop, Ronnie took them a different way. He led them through the corridors of the base and stopped at a door labeled "Street Access 1".

Ronnie explained, "We have access points to the city throughout the base. The trick is finding one where we won't be seen exiting." He spoke through the com channel, "Lynx, I need a clear street access point."

A few seconds went by, then Lynx came back over the channel, "Street Access 1 is a no-go… Street Access 2 is clear and puts you close to our main force." Ronnie kept moving, and the other three followed. The next door was labeled Street Access 2. Ronnie hit the panel on the wall and the door opened. Inside was nothing but a ladder. Ronnie climbed up first, Nick went behind him, then Kip, then Fletch. The ladder led up to an opening in the side of a building. Ronnie looked around to make sure the coast was clear before emerging out into a wide alley. He kept looking both directions to make sure they would not be spotted emerging.

As soon as all four of them were out on the street, Ronnie hit the wall twice with his fist, and the opening from which they had emerged closed up such that there was no evidence of an entrance. "Fletch, we'll need weapons. Can you generate any?" Fletch accessed his Robo computer and found that he was indeed able to generate his weapons like normal. He checked the descriptions of the guns he had acquired from Tyson and Tyler:

Rocket Storm (Gun): Fires 18 simultaneous shots that spread widely and travel forward. Each is capable of individual target tracking, but shots have limited homing ability. Shots explode on impact. Stand clear of walls and do not fire from ground. Fusion of Meteor Storm and Starshot guns.

Wyrm (Gun): Fires four shots in rapid succession from the ground, only one if fired from the air. Shots are large, travel fast, and have limited turning ability when homing. Shots cause little structural damage, but drain high levels of Robo energy. Fusion of Dragon and Gatling guns.

More fusions. He had forgotten to ask about that earlier. "Yeah, I can use my weapons. What are fusion weapons? I've been meaning to ask you."

"They're fusions of two weapons. Start passing them out, we need to get moving."

Kip folded her arms, "Well that was less than unhelpful."

Fletch winked at her as he started generating a weapon in each hand, "Don't worry Kip, I'll just wait and ask someone who knows." Fletch handed the newly generated Wyrm gun to Kip. Her Robo's cat-like ears flickered as she giggled.

Ronnie rolled his eyes as Fletch handed him the larger Rocket Storm gun, warning him "Be careful with this one. When you fire it, be off the ground and away from walls or you'll be caught in the explosion." Ronnie nodded as he took it.

Fletch generated and handed Nick the powerful Plasma Blast gun/bomb, and generated his familiar Streamshot gun for himself.

There was a sound from one end of the alley and the four of them instinctively turned and pointed their guns all at once with one fluent motion. There was nothing there, but the four of them held their aim for a few seconds. Fletch then noticed that Ronnie, who was behind him, was holding his weapon less than a foot away from Fletch's face, which was a fairly dangerous proximity given the spread and magnitude of its fire. Fletch gently pushed Ronnie's aim significantly higher with one finger of his free hand, not saying a word.

Fletch moved forward towards the end of the alley quietly, his gun still aimed. Ronnie contacted the Ops Center, "Lynx, are our forces in front of us or behind?"

A brief moment of silence, then Lynx responded, "Friendly forces are behind you. Combat has not yet been initiated, all Robos are condition green."

Ronnie looked back to the end of the alley that Lynx had indicated friendly, but then he heard rapid gunfire in Fletch's direction and turned back around. Fletch was not in the alley anymore, and the shots were answered by return fire and multiple explosions. As Nick and Kip ran ahead to help Fletch, Ronnie radioed back to Lynx, "Check that, combat has begun. Fan the men out and approach from multiple directions. Repeat, combat has begun."

Lynx replied, "I'm afraid that's not advisable, sir. The main force has been unable to obtain weapons."

Ronnie looked down at the extremely powerful weapon Fletch had given him, then focused his attention back towards the sound of battle and began moving forward to it, "Advance the men to this position regardless. We'll have weapons for them by the time they get here."


	6. Chapter 6: Scientist Crush

Chapter 6: Scientist Crush

Science Dome, 3:30 AM

I knew as well as everyone around that the Ultimatum was as close to unbeatable as we had ever created. Not all of us possessed the sense to combat it appropriately, however. A good number of the other scientists raised both of their weapons to aim at the Ultimatum, but I quickly noticed that we were all on the same floor level. A horizontal sweep of fire would level us all, and the Ultimatum's damage absorption rate would nullify any attempts at a pre-emptive strike from us.

The Ultimatum quickly generated a weapon in one hand, and I instinctively jumped, expecting the horizontal sweep. Everyone else fired their weapons, and the Ultimatum was quickly engulfed in explosions, but the sweep of return fire I had been expecting never came. My AI switched my visual system to the X-Ray vision in response to the explosion cloud, but the Ultimatum was not inside it.

I had expected its commander to simply tank the attacks while he unleashed his own, but instead he had performed a jump that would normally be considered impossible for a Shining Fighter model. He had jumped backwards and up, away from the scientists and the explosions, and he had flipped backwards while keeping his body rigid and spinning at the same time. Still in the air, I raised my Electron bomb to fire at him, but the moment he landed, he dashed forward through the lingering explosions to charge at the scientists who were still on the ground below me.

I pushed off from the wall behind me so that he would pass under me and I would land away from the fray. While passing over him, I fired my Disk gun down at him, and my AI placed my shots to lead him accordingly. It then took control of my wings to flip me in the air so I would land facing the Ultimatum and the scientists he was attacking. As soon as the Ultimatum clashed at close range with my allies, explosions engulfed him again, though I could still see through them. Apparently my allies that were equipped with heavy weapons lacked the foresight to refrain from firing their high-magnitude attacks near friendly targets.

The Robos of multiple scientists were thrown away from the Ultimatum by the rain of powerful attacks from both guns and bombs alike. Others disappeared before my eyes as they were eliminated from the battle. Those who were not affected backed away from the firestorm to continue attacking from a safe distance. As soon as I landed on my feet, I raised my Electron bomb to fire again, but as it was launched, someone's Robo was thrown at me. Whether it was from the explosions or a direct throw from the Ultimatum, I do not know. The bomb hit the flying Robo and detonated close enough to affect me, disabling my Robo for a time.

I fell on my back, unable to move, but still able to hear and see. I heard more explosions, guns firing, the sickening crunch of metal on harder metal, but I could see nothing but the ceiling. The bad part was that the sounds of battle were growing softer and less frequent as Robos were defeated.

My systems began to reboot slowly. I could move again and started staggering back up. My wings were still crippled and hung limply, which made an unexpected weight on my back that threw me off balance. I looked up at where the battle was occurring, and just in time to see it end. The Ultimatum held the last remaining scientist, besides myself, in the air by the throat. The Robo he was holding was evidently near zero percent energy anyway and not putting up any struggle. The Ultimatum had scorch marks all over its armor and a few dents on its chestplate and shoulders, but there were no seriously damaged areas, the armor was not pierced or cracked in any location, and all of the joints seemed to be fully functional. He threw the helpless Robo to the ground headfirst with such force that I saw several of the armor plates splinter to pieces before the Robo itself disappeared from the battle.

I looked briefly around the holoseum, still unable to get off of my knees due to my limp, heavy wings. The damage was catastrophic. Our weapons had been so powerful, our enemy knew it, and he had used that to his own advantage and allowed us to simply destroy ourselves.

I quickly identified the only weapon in the Ultimatum's hand as a simple Robo shotgun. He had not even used any advanced or long-range weapons to fight us. He noticed me struggling to stand and walked over, his weapon disappearing. My scientist instinct kicked in again, and I guessed he was now searching through his list of newly acquired weapons. Yet another drawback to the weapons we had selected: He now had access to every single one of them.

He found the weapon he desired to finish me with. He generated a large, glowing sword that I recognized as a SEVERE upgrade to the Blade gun, though I could not swear to its official name. The grip was such that the blade protruded parallel to the forearm, rather than perpendicularly like traditional swords. He held it with his elbow up, the tip pointing down at me.

My wings sprung back to life, and my AI took full control to save me. My wings flapped and my feet kicked the ground to make me jump backwards and into the air just as the sword stabbed at me. The stab hit the ground instead, but the Ultimatum did not hesitate. He jumped with me to prevent me from creating any large distance between us.

I tried to ward him off with my Disk gun by firing a few shots. The first one hit his shoulder, causing it to flinch backwards briefly, but he used his sword to deflect the second and third. He swiped at me with his weapon, but he had already begun to drop from his jump while my wings kept me aloft and drifting, and his attack fell short.

My feet contacted a wall behind me and I kicked off of it and flew upward, out of reach. I expected he was now generating a weapon that he could hit me with from a distance. I didn't have time to look and check, so when I reached the ceiling I folded my wings, rolled forward, and kicked off of it just before a compressed explosion occurred where my feet had made contact with the ceiling. I opened my wings to glide and several other similar explosions appeared in a line on the ceiling above me. I subconsciously identified his new weapon as a semi-automatic weapon with explosive rounds, probably a gun else the explosions would be larger.

I rolled forward to flip such that I was facing him, then fired an Electron bomb at him. To my surprise, he did not dodge, but there must have been some kind of glitch in the holoseum. The image of his Robo fuzzed to near-static for a brief moment, as if it were an image on an old television set that was getting a bad signal. The bomb sent out its disabling pulse as I landed on my feet. I turned and pointed my Disk gun to fire, but then the Ultimatum vanished. I fired my gun several times anyway, and the shots homed in towards the ground where he had been standing. The Ultimatum reappeared again on its back on the ground when the disks hit. I assumed the holoseum projector was not entirely field-ready, so this was some sort of image bug. The holoseum was probably what they had been working on, though I could not fathom why, and like most incomplete projects, it probably had its fair share of glitches.

I rushed towards the downed Ultimatum with the intention of using my disk weapon at close range to disable some key joints. There was another image fuzz, and the Ultimatum disappeared again when I was almost within reach. I had no idea what was going on, but before I could even think, my AI seized complete control of the Robo again. It made me lean strongly to the side, then twist sharply such that I spun while on my side in the air. One of my feet lashed out and made contact, and the legs designed for kicking emitted a jet-like burst to put extra power behind it. As soon as contact was made, the Ultimatum became visible again.

I landed on one foot, then spun and kicked again, but the Ultimatum was not as stunned by the first kick as I guess my AI had hoped. He caught the second kick between one arm and his chestplate, and I expected a combo attack, but instead, he pointed a free hand towards the ground. I only had time for a quick glance, and though I could not identify the new weapon he had generated, I knew it was a bomb.

My AI made a kick and a wing flap to attempt to break his hold, but his grip was too strong and it wasn't like I had enough time to escape the blast radius anyway. Almost the instant I had looked down at it, the bomb was fired at the ground where we were standing. The Ultimatum's grip was released, and my Robo was allowed to be thrown by the detonation, which was rather powerful, all the way to the opposite wall. I hit the wall hard, and slumped to the ground.

I tried to get up, but as soon as my weight was on my feet, I stumbled to the right and fell down again. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that my right wing was broken. There was electricity visibly running along the outside from the base out to the wingtips, sparks spitting from a few locations, and deep cracks splitting the once beautiful, smooth, and perfectly curved plating. Rather than one almost liquid-coated piece, it now looked like a crumpled leaf. It hung heavily to the side, throwing off my balance such that I was stuck on the ground.

I looked back up at where I had been thrown from, but all there was to see was a large, pitch black cloud of smoke. Slowly, the Ultimatum emerged from the cloud, his armor hissing and steaming while he walked towards me. It had been scorched in a few places before, but now it was completely blackened. It looked like it had been burned to a crisp and would crumble from the slightest touch, but I knew the Ultimatum better than that. It was just the outer colored layer that had been damaged. The actual plating underneath it was still very much intact and completely battle-worthy.

I looked at my own armor, specifically my forearms. Where it had once been a soft, sleek shade of blue, my armor was now just as black as the Ultimatum's plating. My Electron bomb had been knocked out of my hand, and my Disk gun was deactivated and powerless from the shock of the explosion. None of my visual systems besides my normal vision were working; my visor must have been cracked or punctured. The readings that normally displayed on the inside were shut off, preventing me from even reading my own energy level, but I imagined I did not have much left. The only thing still operational on my Robo were my Kick legs and my left wing, but those wouldn't do me much good if I could barely move the rest of my Robo.

The Ultimatum equipped the same sword he had pulled out before and approached me slowly. I thought to myself that he seemed to enjoy drama.

But then something strange happened. I felt some sort of sharp pulse in my mind, like the feeling one gets when he or she stands up too fast from lying down and gets a sudden ischemia to the brain. Everything went out of focus, and when it all came back, the Ultimatum was not moving, and there was someone else in the holoseum.

Sarah "Wings" Colligan

Research and Development Sub-Manager, RoboSci


	7. Chapter 7: Defensive Nightmare

Chapter 7: Defensive Nightmare

Ronnie ran after Kip and Nick, who were at the alley opening where Fletch had gone. They stayed in the cover of the alley at the corner. Nick leaned out and fired his Plasma Blast weapon several times, then ducked back into the alley when some return fire came in the form of several balls of electricity that dissipated upon contact with the structure making up the other side of the alley.

Kip leaned out and called out, "Fletch! Get back here!" before sweeping once with her Wyrm gun and ducking back.

Nick leaned out to fire again, then ducked back quickly and put an arm over Kip just as a fiery explosion hit at the opening to the alley and consumed both of them. As fast as Ronnie could perceive it, Nick appeared in front of him, still holding Kip under his arm. He had used his Halberd's vanishing dash to pull them both from the explosion before it could do any damage to either of them.

"What is Fletch doing?" Ronnie asked hastily.

Nick and Kip both stood back up and pointed their weapons towards the alley entrance as they backed away from it. Three smaller explosions hit the structures and ground near the opening as enemy Robos fired blindly. Kip answered, "He went after something, I couldn't see what it was."

Ronnie looked down the other end of the alley, then up before looking back at them, "I was hoping to remain undetected, but now we can't stay in this alley or we'll get pinned down. It's a defensive nightmare in here."

Nick assessed the alley and agreed. There was no cover, no obstacles, and no side doors. The walls were too high for any of them to scale without augmented Robo legs, which only Fletch could generate. He asked, "Can't we go back into the base the way we came out?"

Ronnie shook his head, "No, it's a one-way exit. It's sealed so that the main entrance is the only way into the base. The multiple exits are so we can all get out of the facility quickly if we need to. This is the first time we've done anything like this."

Several more explosions impacted at the alley opening, but then the blind fire stopped. Kip made a dash forward to get out of the alley so she could help Fletch, but then two heavily armored Metal Bear Robos landed at the entrance in front of her. Each was equipped with a heavy shield. Kip and Nick both fired their weapons, but Kip's Wyrm gun did not do any damage to the shields, and the Plasma Blast from Nick did nothing more than scorch the coloring.

Ronnie held up both his arms to weaken the Metal Bears so that Kip could get past, but then a Splendor Robo painted with fire patterns jumped over the armored Robos wielding two upgraded Flame weapons that he preceded to fire. Kip hopped up and away to avoid the attack, and Nick fired at the Flamethrower Robo, but missed. Ronnie expanded his weakening power to include the flamethrower. Two more Robos, Little Raider: Swift models, hopped around the armored ones with wall jumps. Ronnie called out, "I can't weaken all of them!" Nick and Kip opened fire and managed to knock one of the Swift Robos backwards, but the other one avoided the attacks and wall-jumped at Nick. Nick used a short vanish dash to move back slightly, then slammed a fist down on the smaller Robo when it got close. He jumped up and back and hit it again with a Plasma Blast.

Nick caught a glimpse of something moving on the rooftops above them, and called, "Trick Flyers up top! They're going to box us in!"

Ronnie directed the other two, "We have to fall back and get out of this alley! I'll weaken the front runners, go!"

Kip and Nick started to fall back after knocking the two Swift Robos back again after they had recovered. Kip asked in passing, "What about Fletch?"

"I'll send him support, we can't do anything else for him! GO!" Ronnie released the armored Robos from their weakened state and concentrated his power briefly, but strongly, on the other advancing Robos at the front, causing them to trip and collapse for the moment. He then turned and ran after Kip and Nick, who were still turning every so often to fire back at the attacking Robos. Return fire in the form of bombs and guns followed them, most falling short due to their motion, and some not even having long enough range to hit. Those that had enough range were poorly aimed or otherwise avoided.

Ronnie opened a communication channel as they retreated, "Wade, do you read me?"

Wade responded, "I read you commander, we're pinned down under long range bomb attacks and can't get the main force through."

"Any losses?"

"Only a few. We're under some good cover, but we're unable to retaliate or even move."

Ronnie looked back briefly and ducked to dodge a shot from a long rage gun, "Is Skyler available to break away?"

Skyler's voice came over the com channel, "Affirmative, commander, I think I can get around the bomb fire undetected."

Ronnie responded, "Do it and make your way to the courtyard that I called from earlier. Lynx will direct you there. We got separated from Fletch, and if he's still intact, he's going to need some help getting out of there."

Another female voice that Ronnie recognized as one of his newer squad leaders joined the channel, "Commander, I can get Wolf Squad up there faster to help him out."

"Noki, you will keep your squad with the main force, is that clear?"

She responded, "Yes sir, understood."

Ronnie spoke again, "Wade, keep everyone under cover. We'll come back you up as soon as we can. Lynx, take over battle coordination until I can rejoin the main force." A bomb then impacted in front of Ronnie, and he looked up.

More bombs dropped from overhead and exploded in front of them, cutting off their escape. Ronnie looked up and saw several Trick Flyers, as Nick had called, firing in front of them to box them in. Ronnie turned his weakening power on them, making them fall to their knees unable to keep attacking. One was leaning too far over the edge, and fell down into the alley upon being weakened.

Nick knocked another Trick Flyer on its back with a well-aimed Plasma Blast, but then an explosion from a Speed pod from behind threw him forward and onto his front side. Kip helped him up and swept the alley again with her Wyrm gun, the multiple dragon heads enough to knock back all the Robos unfortunate enough to be at the front of the enemy formation. Two more speed pods were launched and zipped down the alley towards them. Kip and Nick lowered their weapons, turned, and broke into a full running retreat. Ronnie dropped his weakening power on everything to do the same.

The larger and heavier Robos were essentially scrambling over each other with the lack of space in the alley, while the smaller and faster Robos cleared them over top and broke ahead in pursuit of Ronnie, Kip, and Nick. The three of them emerged from the alley onto a street, and Ronnie directed, "Break to the sides!" Kip turned right and Nick turned left while Ronnie jumped up and forward, turned in midair, and finally unleashed an attack from the powerful Rocket Storm gun back towards the alley.

The almost 20 shots spread out across a wide range, some even travelling perpendicular to the direction of Ronnie's aim. Several shots hit the street or the front walls of the alley, but the shots that made it into the alley enveloped the leading pursuers in a fiery explosion.

"What's going on?!" an unfamiliar voice called to Ronnie. Ronnie glanced to the left and there was a squad of five Robos, obviously enemy, approaching them. He pointed his weapon at them. Kip, who had turned in that direction when she had exited the alley, did the same, but neither of them fired. The apparent leader of the enemy squad froze and held his weapon aloft for them to see. "Woah, hold your fire. We're on your side. See? Fusion weapons."

Ronnie understood after a brief moment that the weapons he and Kip had seemed to identify them as members of the original syndicate. Ronnie said, "Kip, stand down, they're friends."

Kip spoke to him mentally, "No they're not! They have weapons, so there is no way they can be on our side!" Ronnie ignored her and lowered his weapon. A shot from a powerful weapon came from the alley and exploded on the building behind Ronnie. Ronnie pointed two fingers of one hand to the corners of the alleyway, and Kip and Nick took positions at the cover of the indicated corners. They then began returning fire into the alley to keep the enemy suppressed. Ronnie moved to meet the enemy squad and evade the line of sight of the enemies in the alley.

The enemy squad leader asked again, "What's going on?"

Ronnie played along, "We had two squads and were ambushed on the other end of this alley by an enemy force. They were unarmed, but they took out all of my squad and the rest of theirs," pointing to Kip and Nick, "and took the weapons from the Robos they destroyed. They're still pursuing us down the alley, but we can't spare the time to keep them engaged."

The enemy squad leader, completely fooled, nodded, "Don't worry about it. We'll take care of them while you complete your mission."

Ronnie nodded, "Much appreciated." He proceeded back down the street at a run, calling to Kip and Nick as he passed the alleyway, "You two are with me. Let's go!" The two of them broke from their positions at the alleyway and followed Ronnie as the enemy squad took up formation on the alley to unwittingly fight off their own.

Skyler came in on the communicator, "Commander, I've reached the courtyard you called from earlier. There's nothing here but damage scars from a battle."

Ronnie heard the sounds of bombs detonating from a building cluster a short distance down the street and he responded, "Copy that. Keep the area secured for our main force to reassemble. Wade, we can hear the bombs impacting near your location. The main force will be clear to move forward shortly. Charge when the bombardment stops."

Wade replied, "Roger that, standing by."

Ronnie called over the comm for his squad leader that had attempted to volunteer earlier, "Noki, if you can get Wolf Squad around the bombs, we could use your help." He was met with no response. "Noki, do you read me?" Again nothing. "Lynx, see if you can find her. Noki, if you can hear me, we're going to have a chat when this is over."


	8. Chapter 8: Scientist Escape

Chapter 8: Scientist Escape

Science Dome, 3:37 AM

Everything in the holoseum was still. More than that, it was as if the holoseum was suspended in time, the Ultimatum included. I recognized the woman who now stood in the holoseum with us by her long purple hair, though her name eluded me. She was a scientist who worked in the prototype manufacturing zone of the lab, but had participated in the tournament that day for the unique chip that mimicked the Ultimatum's weapon storage capabilities. As I recall, she had ended up inexplicably unconscious as a result of one of her battles.

It seemed that she and I were the only things still animated in the holoseum. I still could not stand up due to the heavy damage inflicted upon my Robo. She looked down at me almost in pity, and I did not speak as I assumed she would explain herself without a prompt from me.

She spoke, "My control is not absolute, so I will be brief. The properties of this holoseum will allow you to survive and will deceive your opponent into believing you defeated by his own hand." I tried to speak up to ask her to slow down, but she would not give me the opportunity and she continued, "You have only to remain perfectly still and you will still be conscious after the battle has concluded. What you do from there is your decision, but do not let your concern for the others prevent your escape."

I tried to interrupt her, "Why-"

"Some are dead. The rest will be fine without your help."

I was silenced, at a loss for words in a feeling of helplessness. I know I should have expected it, though, with as powerful as I knew the Ultimatum was: strong enough to cause life-threatening mental trauma if the commander did not hold himself back. Even so, understanding that several of my coworkers were dead came as a shock to me.

She continued, "You know this facility very well. You know where they will not look. Find a place to hide, and wait for help to arrive." I opened my mouth to speak again, but she again did not give pause long enough, "You need not be sacrificed, so stay alive. Good luck."

She vanished as the words were spoken and time resumed. The Ultimatum continued its advance toward me with its sword ready. I was tempted to do something to put up a fight, but I forced myself to listen to what I had been instructed. I had no hope of victory anyway, so trusting in Her was my best hope.

The Ultimatum drew its sword back and up, preparing for a downward stab, exactly as before, and I made sure to stay perfectly still. The stab was executed, but it did not touch my Robo. Far from it, the attack fell several feet to my right. To my surprise though, the battle ended and we were withdrawn from the holoseum.

As my consciousness returned to reality, and I fell over on my back, stunned slightly, but somehow still conscious. I feigned unconsciousness and remained limp. I cautiously snuck a peek at the nearby area by barely opening one eye. The other scientists were on the ground as well, none of them were moving. I made sure to keep perfectly still.

A deep voice spoke in the room, "Ray, I need another team down here. Some of your scientists broke out and gave us a bit of trouble. It's been taken care of, but I need new men down here to keep working. We may be moving on without any sleep, so make sure they are well-rested."

I expected that all of our opponents, save the Ultimatum's commander, had been knocked out as well, so that would explain why he needed them replaced. But what were they working on? I wished to know, but I understood that my priority should be my survival, and that meant I needed to follow Her advice and find a place to hide. I needed to get out of this room before a new team arrived, but had no way of knowing which way the last man standing was facing.

I had no choice but to chance it. My chance of a silent escape would not be increased by prolonging my time pretending to be unconscious. I opened my eyes and lifted my head to look. Luckily he was facing away from me, inspecting some equipment, and I started standing as quickly as I could while still retaining silence.

He suddenly stopped moving, and I feared that he may have heard me. I froze. His head moved very slightly to the side, and I gave up on being stealthy. I bolted for the door behind me and escaped the room. As I ran down the hall, the man's voice came through the PA system loudly, "Attention! There is a scientist loose in the development zone. All nearby units converge on the tech lab to box in."

I racked my mind for a place to hide. I tried an office door down the hall, and it was unlocked. I peeked in, and fortunately, it was vacant. I heard someone coming around the corner, and I hid in the room, closing the door behind me. The hiding space wouldn't last long, I knew. Once they had gathered at the Tech lab, they would fan out and start searching every room. After the running footsteps had passed outside, I locked the door to give myself more time to think.

I turned on the lights and looked around. There were no vents that I could fit through, the ceiling was a solid sheet of metal, and the floor was a solid slab of cement underneath the layer of white carpet. The cabinets would not be secure enough if they conducted a thorough search. I tried fitting in one regardless, but to no avail.

The knob twitched as someone outside tried to open it. I couldn't count on them giving up at the lock. If anything, it would make the room more subject to search. The attempted entry still was a warning that I was running out of time. I looked around the room frantically, and then noticed the desk. It was like all the other private-office desks in the facility. It was a white condensed plastic desk that looked almost like harshly tinted glass with a top-half displaying cabinets that touched the ceiling above the workspace.

I remembered from my first day at the facility that I had thought the desks were permanent fixtures to the rooms, and didn't learn until I had my own office that the desks could actually be moved fairly easily. They were a lot lighter than they looked, and were rounded wherever they touched the floor so that they could slide easily over carpet. I slid the desk sideways towards the only unfurnished corner, and turned it diagonally to the room so that a space was left between the desk and the corner.

It offered a decent place to hide. I left a small opening near the wall so I could enter, made sure to turn the light off in the room, and then took the hiding place behind the desk and closed it off completely. No later than I had closed the hiding place off, the door was forced open.

I heard people looking around the room, and I held my breath. I sunk down to the floor because my knees were weakening too much to keep me standing. I heard someone speak, and I recognized the voice as belonging to Ray, the head scientist, "Find anything?"

One of the men in the room responded, "No sir. Nobody in here."

"All right then, keep searching the hallway." I breathed a silent sigh of relief, expecting to hear the door close, but then I tensed up again when Ray suddenly said, "Wait!...."

I could tell something was wrong. It couldn't have been a guess, judging by his tone. He saw something that I must have missed. I looked up and noticed in terror that I had covered up the corner of the room where the security camera was located.

I panicked and looked around my small space, desperate for a hint of some means of escape. I then looked at the floor I was sitting on. The carpet was not a solid piece. There was a break that created a square in the corner. As quickly and quietly as I could, I stood up so I could look under it.

"What is it, sir?" one of the men on the search detail asked. There was a silence as Ray pondered.

I lifted the piece of carpet and nearly cried out in praise to a higher power. There was a small hatch in the floor with a latch that had been hidden under the carpet. I didn't know why it was there, but at the present time, I honestly did not care.

"The security camera…"

I opened the hatch, but didn't even bother to look down and see if it was safe. Anything was safer than where I was at the moment. There was a ladder proceeding down through the floor.

"…It's supposed to be in that corner…"

I started stepping down the ladder, making sure to put the piece of carpet over the top of the hatch so it would cover it back up upon closing.

"…Move the desk. It slides easily."

I closed the hatch above me silently, enclosing myself in pure darkness, just as I heard the desk moved across the floor above me. Again I held my breath. I was sure they must have been able to hear my heart pounding, because I could barely hear anything else. There was a pause so long I could hardly stand it. To my consolation, Ray eventually said, "All right, let's keep looking."

Through the floor, I heard footsteps fading away, and then the door closing. I waited about another minute or two in case someone had stayed behind in suspicion, though it seemed like an hour.

When I was moderately sure the room was clear I pushed up softly on the hatch to open it again. It didn't move, so I put a little more force behind it, but again it wouldn't budge. I threw my shoulder up with my weight to try and force it, and it budged only a slight bit before returning to its securely closed position, indicating that it was being weighed down, not locked. I concluded that the desk had ended up being positioned right on top of the hatch, locking me in the pitch darkness. I felt my way down the rest of the ladder and started trembling.

I'm not afraid of the dark, but I am accustomed to being able to turn on some kind of light at some time, or at least knowing where everything is. I guess what I was feeling was a little bit of claustrophobia. I was no longer panicky, since I was relatively safe, but I still felt an extreme sense of helplessness, being stuck in there.

I found the bottom of the ladder where there was a hard floor. I felt around, and found that there was room to sit down, which I did. I wished I knew what to do next, but I was too distraught to come up with ideas. Several of my coworkers, a few of which had been my friends, were now dead. My life as I knew it was falling apart. And to make it worse, I was stuck in a pitch black cellar (as far as I could tell) with no foreseeable way out. I had escaped one terrible situation, but I was now trapped in another.

I tried quieting my mind, hoping that voice that had come to me before would come again. Nothing happened. Even the distant, familiar hum of machinery that had been constant in my life and a comfort that I had taken for granted was gone. I was alone. I hugged my knees and cried softly into my white scientist dress.

Sarah "Wings" Colligan  
Research and Development Sub-Manager, RoboSci


	9. Chapter 9: Wolf Squad

Chapter 9: Wolf Squad

Ronnie, Kip, and Nick followed the streets towards the sounds of the explosions. Ronnie checked around every corner, leading the other two. Upon looking around one corner, he pulled himself back and signaled to the other two to stop. He slowly peeked around the corner again while whispering back to the other two, "Two Robos watching the alley, three more behind them covering in multiple directions, two bombarding constantly, two more on each-" He then looked back and Kip and Nick were both gone, he looked around briefly and didn't see them"... and I'll just.... talk to myself then..." He heard a light metal clank above him and looked up to see Kip and Nick scaling the side of the building. Ronnie peeked back down the alley, then muttered to himself, "I guess up is the only way they're not looking," and started to climb behind them.

Kip reached the top first, peeking over the edge to make sure the rooftop was clear, which it was. She climbed over the edge, then offered her hand to Nick to help him up. Nick took it and was pulled up onto the flat rooftop, but once his feet were in place, he pulled Kip sharply towards him as a purple blast of energy shot right through where she would have been had Nick not done so. Nick turned and quickly shot, hitting a Trick Flyer Robo that was on the rooftop behind them.

The Robo was hit square in the faceplate and fell on its back. As it landed, the entire Robo glowed a pure and bright yellow before vanishing completely. Kip recovered from her surprise at the sudden tug, "Oh... thank you." They both reached down to help Ronnie up onto the rooftop, then Kip said, puzzled, "I've never seen a Robo vanish like that before."

Nick nodded in the direction of the Robo he had shot, "Maybe that's what happens when they're not in a holoseum."

The three of them moved to the edge that overlooked their targets, and there were more Robos than Ronnie had seen just by looking around the corner. They were looking down at a four-way intersection of alleys. There were two Robos covering each of three of the four directions, while in the fourth direction, six larger Robos were deployed in formation with pods that acted like artillery and arching bombs in each hand. The combined firepower from all of them created a constant bombardment of explosive fire that seemed directed at two buildings down the alley that looked heavily damaged. Three other Robos stood in the center, frequently changing the directions that they were covering.

Ronnie said to the other two, "I'll go first."

He jumped out high over the intersection and fired his weapon downwards. The Rocket Storm shots were so scattered that several hit the rooftops around them, and Nick had to duck to avoid one, but the ones that went in the intended direction caused plenty of explosive damage on impact. Nick and Kip jumped off the building in the wake of Ronnie's attack, each of them firing their weapons downward at any Robos that had not been thrown aside. They both landed on their feet and were immediately engaged in close combat with the heavy artillery Robos that had been deployed in the alley a safe distance away from the intersection. They were very large and very heavily armored.

Nick raised his weapon, but had it knocked away instantly. He ducked a punch, turned, and stuck one of his Robo's elbow-mounted blades in between the armor plates of his attacker. The blade broke off of his Robo almost immediately thereafter, and Nick was thrown back by a strong arm sweep. Kip, with her physically weaker Robo, was disarmed and thrown back right next to Nick just as easily.

Ronnie then landed behind both of them and raised his arms, using his weakening power to cause the closest two armored Robos to fall forward. The Robos were so large and immobile that the other four were blocked and unable to proceed, despite their attempts to clamber over the first two. Nick rolled and retrieved his weapon, then fired it several times near the top of one of the buildings above the stuck Robos. As he had intended, a significant portion of the wall broke off and fell on top of the six Robos, pinning them. Nick repeated the action on the other side of the alley, and a significantly thicker portion of wall broke free as one piece and fell towards the already pinned enemies.

When the second piece hit, it created a thick cloud of dust that engulfed the intersection, but through it the three commanders could distinguish a brief, bright yellow glow. When the dust had settled, the glow and the enemy Robos were gone.

"Wade, the main force is clear to advance," Ronnie said into the communication channel.

"Roger that, commander, but we'll need some time to get mobile again. We have several Robos trapped under or behind debris. We're getting them out right now," Wade responded.

"Understood. We'll come to you. Lynx, can you give me a big picture?" Ronnie signaled to Nick and Kip that they were getting underway and the three of them started climbing over the debris that had crushed the artillery Robos. They headed in the direction of the damaged buildings.

Lynx came back over the channel, "Standby on sitrep." After a few moments, he came back again, "The enemy force has split up into multiple groups. The largest of the groups, led by Strike, is headed towards the primary Robo production facilities. They left a small squad to guard the device near the metro station. The other groups are spreading out and engaging civilian targets, both Robo and human alike. The strange thing is that Robos and humans are both disappearing with that yellow glow that you've been seeing."

"Status of our forces?"

"All Robos have taken some damage, a few have been eliminated completely."

"What about Fletch? Have you found him anywhere?" They were, by that time, near the buildings where the main force had been taking cover. Several squads were out in the open along with Wade, who was in his dark blue Strike Vanisher: Glaive model Robo. Neither he nor any of the other Robos around him had any weapons.

Lynx responded again, "Negative. There are a lot of security camera feeds to go through. He could be anywhere."

"Understood. So if you could put it all in one sentence?"

"It's a mess, commander."

"All right. I'll try to get everything organized and under control." Ronnie then addressed Wade, "Wade, where's Noki?"

Wade replied with a shake of his head, "She's not here. She broke off."

Frustrated, Ronnie muttered aloud, "Dang it, I told her to keep her squad with the main force."

"Oh, her squad is right where it should be. She went off on her own, leaving them behind." After a brief moment, Ronnie sighed. Wade asked, "Are you sure it was the best of ideas to make her a squad leader?"

Ronnie shook his head, "Don't ask me. She was elected. Somehow. Well anyway, we need to get everyone organized." He turned to Nick and Kip, "Nick, I'm going to assign Noki's squad to your command, temporarily. I want you and Kip to get to the train station and knock out that device." Nick and Kip both nodded, and Ronnie continued, "Wade, we're going to take our main force to keep Strike's forces busy as long as we can. Whatever they're here for, it can't be in our best interests." Wade nodded. "Lynx, come back."

Lynx responded again through the comm. channel, "Still here commander, go ahead."

"Try to determine what their objective here may be. If it's more complicated than just to secure a place to make Robos, I'd like to know. Contact the Ray Corporation CEO and see if he knows anything."

Ronnie turned back to Wade, "Where's Noki's squad?"

Wade called out, "Wolf Squad, streetside!"

On command, five nearly identical Robos exited one of the buildings and formed up side-by-side at attention. They were purely white Burning Beast Robos that stood upright with the body shape of Aerial Beauty models. Their heads were smoothly rounded on the sides, rounding off to an almond-like tip at the nose with pointy, canine-like ears on top. At the base of each Robo's spine was a pure white tail, consisting of short metal fibers so fine that they looked like hair. Each had a loose-fitting belt around the hips that had a built-in pistol holster on the left side that looked like it would perfectly fit a Robo Magnum gun. On the back of the belt, each Robo had a sheathed knife that looked to be about a foot long or more, positioned at an off-horizontal angle above the base of the tail. The handle to each knife protruded slightly off the side of each Robo, making it easy to grip on command. Were it not for a few damage smudges on each Robo in various places, they would have been purely white and identical.

Ronnie addressed the squad, "Firstly, who is the second in command?" One of the Robos raised its hand briefly. "Do you know where your squad leader went?"

The Robo labeled as Noki's second answered, "No sir."

Ronnie had expected as much, "All right, then, you are now the squad's communicator. I'll have Ops set you up in communication with the officers. You'll all be taking orders from Nick for the remainder of this battle. He will brief you on your mission."

The squad's new communication officer nodded in affirmation, "Yes sir!" Wolf Squad then turned its eyes to Nick, awaiting orders.

Ronnie let Nick address them while he and Wade walked back towards the rest of the Loyalist Robos. Ronnie asked, "So, regarding Noki, what do you think?"

Wade thought for a moment before answering, "It's nothing unexpected from her. She's pulled stunts like this plenty of times, but I don't think we need to worry about it. She's stubborn and independent, but she has excellent judgment, much as I hate to admit it. She's never been wrong."

Ronnie shook his head and sighed, "One day she's going to make a mistake. I just hope it isn't today."

* * *

Fletch rounded a corner just as an energy blast took a chunk out of it. His armor had several scorch marks from plasma burns, and one of his forearms was dented where he had deflected flying debris from an explosion. He had no weapon equipped, but in his arms he carried a young boy. He looked to be no older than twelve, and had no Robo shell around him; he was purely human. He kept his eyes closed, but was still conscious.

Fletch had already tried to set the boy down so he could fight off his pursuers, but he could not get the kid to let go of his arm. He hesitated too long on turning another corner and was hit in the back by a high-impact, but fortunately low damage, weapon. Fletch was thrown forward and the boy's grip broke, causing the two to separate and sprawl across the ground on a wide street.

Fletch first looked up to make sure the boy was ok. To his relief, the boy was able to get to his feet without any trouble. Fletch stood up as well and took a defensive stance in front of him. There were three Robos that had been chasing them: One Trick Flyer: Criminal and two Shining Fighter: Glory Robos. The lead Robo shot his weapon again, and Fletch responded by ducking to the side and swinging his arm to take the blast on his reinforced forearm plating. His arm reeled from the shot, but he did not take any damage from it.

Immediately after taking the hit, Fletch flinched sharply as if he was going to attack, but his opponents were slightly too far away for a physical strike, even with a step or a lunge, so he held his position. The opposing Robos advanced slowly and cautiously, spreading out with their weapons raised. Fletch kept his eyes on them, waiting for the slightest movement out of place to which he could react, but his opponents were hesitant. They stared each other down.

From a rooftop above the four Robos and single human boy, another Robo watched. It was a pure white Robo with a metal-fiber tail.


	10. Chapter 10: Scientist and Darkness

Chapter 10: Scientist and Darkness

Science Dome, 5:42 AM

I thought I heard something. Something like a whisper in my mind. I cleared my thoughts in case it was the voice from earlier. It felt like I had been in the darkness for at least a day, but I couldn't tell. Unfortunately, the glow function on my watch had not worked for about a month. I had meant to get it fixed the previous week, but kept putting it off. I didn't hear anything in my mind when I tried listening for it, so I sighed in disappointment.

I hadn't been able to sleep either. Tired as I may have been, I could not get over my light sense of panic that was keeping me awake. I was actually a little frustrated, with as long as it felt like I had spent in this darkness without being able to sleep.

I heard it again. It was like a whisper, but not any discernable words. Just sounds. I looked to the side, and that's when I noticed that something moved in my field of vision. I turned my head again, and it happened again. When I tried looking straight at it, I couldn't see anything, but I could vaguely make out something whenever I turned my head. Not enough to discern what it was, but at least I knew it was there.

I shakily got to my feet and held onto the ladder behind me with one hand. I felt forward with my feet and free hand as far as I could, but did not make contact with anything. I gathered the courage and let go of the ladder. After two steps, I made contact with a corner, and started feeling my way down a wall, making sure to touch the ground lightly with my feet before stepping and putting my weight down.

I heard the whispering in my head again, but it was more pronounced. I couldn't make out any words, but it sounded like it was beckoning me to come. I felt along the wall, and felt a step down with my feet that turned into a staircase. I could make out something of a glow in front of me. It was like a soft blue glow that was barely visible, but as I kept moving forward it became more pronounced.

It became purely perceivable around a corner eventually, and the whispers started coming more frequently. Also, for an unexplained reason, my tension began lessening and I became more relaxed, contrary to what I would have expected would happen. I was reassured, rather than apprehensive. I rounded the corner slowly, and the source of the glow became apparent.

I could see, some distance in front of me, a long, horizontal neon blue bar that was creating the glow I had been seeing. It was not illuminating any other object in the room, but as I approached it, additional light sources sprung to life and illuminated the area brightly. I covered my eyes since I had spent so long in such utter darkness. Once my eyes adjusted, I was able to look.

The room I was in was so large, I could not see the far wall, and in front of me was what looked like a gigantic holoseum. It stretched from wall to wall on the sides, and forward as far as I could see. The blue neon bar I had seen was only the marker for the closest side. To say the least, I was astonished.

For starters I did not understand how such a large room could structurally exist underground without vertical supports to the roof. Aside from that, how could a holoseum this large have been constructed, and what was it here for?

I could not explain, for all my scientific intuition, why I felt drawn to it. Maybe I had been in darkness so long that anything illuminated now seemed appealing, but regardless of the reason, I felt compelled to approach it and study it. Going back was not an option in my mind, at this point. The holoseum was strange. Aside from its size, it did not have any panels on the sides at the base, which left its circuitry near the ground exposed. The battle surface was like none I had seen before. The majority of the area closest to me was covered in various greens. Some areas were covered in what looked like grass, others areas had what looked like thick clusters of dark green trees. I assumed, of course, that all of the plants I saw in the vastly stretching holoseum were synthetic.

The zones of green went on for a good distance, even by the real world standards, but much farther away I could see what looked like large rocks, some with tips colored white. I could also identify some obvious clusters of structures in the distance, but beyond that was out of my range of perception as the holoseum continued on farther than I could see.

I reached forward to test the holoseum's containment field, expecting it to be weak due to the exposed circuitry, but to my surprise, it was the purest field I had ever seen. Normally, a holoseum's containment field would feel like glass to the touch, with some hints of static electricity. This field is meant to keep Robo battles within the holoseums, making sure no attacks or Robos accidentally leave the battle area. The field on this holoseum, though, had no tactile feel at all. It was like there was nothing there, but I was not able to move my hand forward and through it.

Upon contact with the field, my mind was pulled into the holoseum. It felt like a normal dive, but it was forced rather than voluntary. Everything blurred as if entering a Robo battle, and when it cleared, I was in the holoseum. I was sprawled out on a carpet of grass. I put my hands underneath me to push myself up off the ground, and I noticed two things at once. Firstly, my Robo was not deployed. I had somehow entered the holoseum in human form. I tried not to be too surprised given the nearly-destroyed state my battle with the Ultimatum had left my Robo, but it was still something I had never seen before. Secondly, the grass covering this portion of expanse was not like any grass I knew. It was obviously not metal, but nor was it plastic, rubber, or any other kind of synthetic material to which I would normally attribute grass. It was soft and flexible, but broke easily and had combined qualities of fabric, paper, and rubber.

I also noticed that my perception of everything felt so much more real than it did in a normal Robo battle. Since I was not covered in Robo armor, though, I again tried not to be surprised.

I stood up and looked around. The grass extended around me a good ways, but its perimeter was covered by trees. They were not like the synthetic trees I was familiar with. The colors were duller and darker, and the limbs and leaves seemed to move ever-so-slightly on their own. Over the tops of the tallest trees, I noticed that the ceiling of the holoseum was not an endless black expanse like normal, but instead it was a light blue. Far above me, I could also make out a white object that looked like a thick cloud of white smoke. I'm afraid I cannot describe it any better than that.

I noticed another discontinuity from normal holoseums in that there was no obvious way of ejecting from this one. Maybe I needed a Robo in order to accomplish this, but the back-of-the-mind ability to eject from the holoseum did not seem present.

I tried calling out loudly to see if there was any response, but there was not. Relieved as I was to be out of the darkness, I was still trapped. I wasn't as concerned as I would have thought I'd be, though. This was a rather pleasant place. There was a slight ambient sound of air in a constant state of movement, the area was well lit, the grass (or whatever it was) was soft and comfortable, and the atmosphere was pleasantly warm. It was a welcome change from sitting for hours in the dark on a cold cement floor.

I lay back on the grass and looked up at the white clouds above me and took a deep breath in, then out. Lost, all alone, in a million acre paradise? I could get used to it.

Sarah "Wings" Colligan  
Research and Development Sub-Manager, RoboSci


	11. Chapter 11: Noki

Name: Noki

Age: 21, Gender: Female

Power: Unknown

Robo: Burning Beast - Wolfen Mk-2, White

The Wolfen Mk-2 is the robo uniquely used by the R-Loyalist Wolf Squad. It is a Burning Beast model that has been heavily modified from its predecessor, which has not been seen since physical robos became obsolete. Nearly a polar opposite of the original Wolfen robos, the Wolfen Mk-2 stands upright with a very slim shape. Its body type mirrors that of Aerial Beauty models, and similarly trades defense and strength for speed and agility, though it maintains a gender-neutral appearance. It has a kitsune-shaped headpiece, stands on the toes of paw-like feet, and has a tail attached to the lower back that is made of metal fibers so fine they look almost like organic hairs. The tail is the only part of the robo that actually has any semblance of fur. The robo has light armor plating across its entire chassis to allow maximum mobility, and the plates around the joints automatically retract and extend as necessary for optimal flexibility. There are no protruding armor features, leaving everything very smooth and sleek. All of the Wolfen Mk-2 robos used by Wolf Squad are identically white all over, save for the robotic black and grey eyes on the headpiece. Good Burning Beast robotics are very difficult to create, and so the Wolfen Mk-2 robos use cores built from original Wolfen code. Burning Beast robotics can handle a far greater programming load than other robos. As such, each model is customized to be unique.

Biography: Noki has been with the R-Syndicate most of her life after growing up as a streetside pickpocket. As soon as she picked up robo battling, becoming a better commander became her life's drive. Her days are most often spent in training, practicing for battle in both the physical and tactical senses, and she is constantly seeking out tough opponents to test herself. She considers herself a duelist before anything else, and her skill with a robo earned her a place as the leader of the R-Loyalist Wolf Squad, who elect their strongest to lead. Despite her position in a squad-oriented structure, Noki is as independent as they come. She bends the rules, sometimes even breaking them to do things her own way and often by herself, and has a bitter dislike for authority. The Loyalist leaders have been looking for an excuse to revoke her position, but her skill is undeniable, and her individual actions (whether authorized or not) have salvaged group operations on multiple occasions.

Chapter 11: Noki

Fletch and the three robos around him stared, nobody daring to make the first move. The kid that Fletch was guarding stayed close to him, nearly hugging his robo's leg. The white wolf-like robo quietly watched the four from a rooftop above, unnoticed by any of them.

Fletch had his gun pointed at the robo in front of him, his free hand in a low ready position. The other two had spread out so that the three were evenly spaced around him. Fletch looked sideways at one of them with his eyes, barely moving his head.

The robo in front of him blinked, and Fletch took the microsecond opportunity. He fired his weapon and ducked sideways to dodge the instinctive return fire of a fairly narrow-fire beam. As his weapon discharged, he quickly generated a pod on his back that he had obtained earlier in his battle with Tyson. He deployed it as soon as it appeared, by which time the other two robos behind him could react. They fired their own weapons just in time to see a field of tiny bomblets appear in front of them. Their weapons set off the field, which created an outward-expanding explosion around Fletch that threw the two robos onto their backs.

*****Flechette Field (Pod): Deploys a spherical field of tiny floating bomblets into the area above, behind, and beside the user. The bomblets detonate upon contact, and one detonation will trigger the entire field. Bomblet field only floats for a short time before vanishing. Use only when moving forward. Fusion of Wall and Trio pods.*****

Fletch dashed through the opening in the field of explosions that was in front of him and knocked his target's weapon away with a quick strike from his right wrist, turned, then knocked him sideways with a strong elbow blow to the head.

The robo flipped and rolled on the ground once before planting a foot to recover and stand. Fletch dashed towards him and kicked the supporting foot out from under him, then kicked again with his heel to knock away the arm that caught his weight as he fell forward. The robo fell on his front, where Fletch pinned him with a foot and threw a powerful fist down to crush his head into the hard ground. The robo twitched as it was hit, then glowed a bright yellow and started to dissipate.

Fletch turned and pointed his gun to the other two robos, one of whom was getting to his feet. The other was heavier and having a harder time with it. Fletch fired a quick spray of needles from his Streamshot while generating another weapon in his left hand. The robo shielded itself with an arm, taking the needles in the armor plating where they stuck. After taking some of the shots, he pointed his own weapon to return fire, but his weapon was knocked away by one compact blast, and himself knocked back by two more that felt like gut punches.

*****Fletchette (Bomb): Rapidly fires three baseball-sized bombs that create compact explosions on their targets, dealing heavy damage in small areas where they impact and embedding small pieces of shrapnel that can disrupt robotics if armor is penetrated. Fusion of Shotgun (Gun) and Wall (Bomb).*****

Fletch dashed to close the distance between himself and the temporarily dazed robo as he made both of his weapons disappear, reaching it just as it raised its other weapon at Fletch. Fletch pushed the arm aside inwardly, gripping the robo's wrist and narrowly avoiding taking the shot at close range. Instead, the laser-like shot ended up in the pavement, leaving a small crater in the wake of a flash. With the enemy robo's wrist still in his grip, Fletch turned so they were back-to-back and hooked his elbow around the robo's other shoulder, using that as leverage as he routed his strength to his arms and torqued the gripped arm back sharply, breaking the elbow joint.

As the robo's grip on its gun broke, Fletch released the wrist and grabbed the weapon instead, giving the still-hooked shoulder a twist to pull the robo around in front of him, perfect placement to put a point-blank shot into the vulnerable area just above the chestplate. With a short, high-pitched gasp, the robo glowed yellow and vanished.

*****Phaser (Gun): Fires a single straight shot that will not home, but has zero flight time. Recharges slowly, but deals heavy focus damage at any range. Has very high armor penetration, but deals minimal damage to internal robotics. Fusion of Sniper and Flame guns.*****

Fletch quickly turned his weapon to the last remaining robo, expecting it to be on its feet by now, but it wasn't. In fact it was on its front on the pavement, weakly trying to raise one of its weapons. On top of it knelt a pure white robo identical to the ones described earlier. It had a sleek shape, kitsune-shaked head, a metal fiber tail, and held a knife in the back of the downed robo on the ground. She looked up at Fletch with a piercing gaze through her black and grey robo eyes before giving the knife a twist, causing the third robo to twitch and fade away in the same yellow glow as the others. The blade of the knife in her hand was a shiny silver with a bright blue glow lining the sharp edge.

She stood and stared at Fletch. The boy he had been protecting had taken to hiding against the side of a building, covering his ears. Fletch assumed the robo was one of the Loyalists, given that it had taken out one of his opponents for him, so he lowered his weapons and relaxed. The white robo relaxed its posture as well and replaced its blade in the sheath on its lower back.

Words of gratitude were on the tip of Fletch's tongue when the white robo unexpectedly dashed at him at high speed. Fletch was taken by surprise and only had enough time to raise his Phaser weapon halfway before he was hit. In two quick strikes, Fletch's right arm was knocked to the side followed by a quick blow to his stomach. The Phaser gun in his hand was knocked away and slid along the pavement well out of reach. Fletch brought his left fist up for a retaliatory strike, but the white robo withdrew as quickly as she had approached and Fletch hit nothing but air. The white robo zipped right back at him, this time to the side, giving Fletch a forceful shove to throw him off balance combined with a foot sweep to send him on his way to the ground without halting her forward motion. She blurred past him and skidded to a stop, standing still with two feet and one hand on the ground glaring at him. Fletch landed heavily on his back, stunned a moment before gathering himself and rolling to a standing position. He generated his Streamshot weapon again and pointed it, but held his fire, trying more diplomatic approaches first, "We're on the same side, I'm not with them!" The other robo did not move or respond, still glaring at him with her piercing gaze. Fletch tried again, "I'm not your enemy. Who are you?"

After a brief pause, the other robo gave a brief tilt of her head and said in a distinctively female voice, "You can call me Noki," and dashed at him again. Fletch fired his weapon, but she was still too fast for the needles to reach before she could evade. Fletch fired in constant bursts wherever he could see her. She gracefully stepped sideways to avoid one flurry, ducked under another in a spin that followed into a sideways airborne twist to avoid even more needles.

As she got close, Fletch gave up on trying to hit her with his gun and tried to predict her movements and hit her at close range. He brought his hands up, ready to guard, and stepped into her approach with a low sweeping kick. As he expected, she jumped to avoid it and was easily in position for an airborne retaliation, but Fletch was ready this time. He turned his kick into a turn with a big step away from Noki to avoid her own attack, and then brought his other foot up and around kick again while she was still off the ground.

Noki was able to twist in midair to avoid the kick and take hold of Fletch's heel when she landed. She ducked under his leg to twist him off balance, but Fletch felt it and went with it, jumping off his grounded foot, twisting and pulling the gripped foot in while he rotated and kicked his free foot straight out. He successfully caught Noki in the cheek, which broke her grip and knocked her back a ways. Fletch's rotation ended abruptly on contact, which caused him to simply drop onto his side. He recovered quickly, as did Noki who hit the pavement, skidded for a moment, then flipped herself up in mid-slide to land on her feet.

There was another pause as they both held their ground. Fletch could tell that she had more energy left in her robo than he, since his armor was still sporting scorch marks and dents while hers was near completely shiny and undamaged, save for some scrapes and a mark on her cheek. He knew he couldn't last much longer unless he was able to land a heavy hit on her soon.

Fletch maintained focus as he waited patiently. He again tried communication, "I'm not with them. I'm here to help."

Noki nodded and replied calmly, "I know."

Fletch was slightly confused, but kept himself ready in case she charged again, "So... we are fighting why?"

One of Noki's canine ears flickered briefly and she answered, "For the only reason duels are fought: To determine a superior."

Noki struck Fletch as the kind of person to put the satisfaction of her ego over the needs of anyone else. He recalled the weapon in his hand and his pod, causing them to disappear, effectively disarming himself. He held his hands out to the sides and said, "If it gets it over quicker, than go ahead."

Noki's eyes narrowed, "You think I have so much pride as to not finish an unarmed opponent?"

Fletch answered, "It's not that. Fighting between ourselves is keeping us both from engaging the real enemy here. If you'd rather fight me than them, then just finish it now so at least one of us can get back to being useful! We're just wasting time."

Noki narrowed her eyes and dashed at Fletch so fast that he could only see her as a blur. She threw a strong punch forward at a dent in the center of Fletch's armor, a potential weak spot where the plating would not be hard to break and reach the vulnerable vital mechanics underneath.

Fletch had already removed all of his weapons, which gave him the conditions he needed to focus and react instinctively. His vision was tunneled, his hearing blurred, his color vision greyed, and his senses of touch numbed. In a very quick and sudden motion Fletch grabbed her wrist and yanked her past him without breaking the grip. Noki lost her balance in surprise, and just as she was about to regain it and retaliate, he jerked her back towards him, pulled his gripping arm back while turning sideways, then slammed his free elbow into her side just under her shoulder joint. The combined force of his elbow slam and arm pull was enough to rip Noki's robo's arm off, and enough power remained in the strike to send her flying back with the exposed robotics of her shoulder joint sending out sparks. Noki cried out in pain as her robo's arm was detached and she flew through the air.

Noki landed hard on her back and slid several meters before stopping, cradling her shoulder with her remaining arm. Fletch discarded the robotic arm and cleared the distance with a jump, pinned Noki down with one hand and raised his other as if to finish her.

Fletch held back his strike, not wanting to finish her in case she was finally willing to cooperate. But that was all the time Noki needed. She unsheathed her blade that was still on her lower back, holding it inverted in her remaining hand, and sliced it through the forearm of Fletch's arm that was holding her down. The sharp, glowing blue edge cut through Fletch's reinforced forearm armor like it was cotton candy. Fletch reacted by throwing his readied punch down towards Noki's head, but she was able to roll onto her side and out of the way. Fletch's fist cracked into the pavement where her head had been as Noki snaked her legs out from under him and with a twisting scissor kick combined with a roll she rolled over with him and pinned one knee to his throat while holding her blade just under his chin. She was ready to finish him off if he tried anything similar.

They both remained still for several seconds. Fletch expected her to finish him off, while Noki was ready to do so only if he tried to regain the upper hand. When it became clear that he wasn't going to do anything, she said, "Don't let your guard down like that. Against the real enemies, it's an unaffordable blunder."

Fletch breathed a few sharp breaths in and out before responding, "And against you?"

Noki stood up, twirled her dagger once, then replaced it in its sheath before extending her one remaining hand to help Fletch up, "A friendly duel doesn't make us enemies."


	12. Chapter 12: Scientist Lost

Chapter 12: Scientist Lost

Location: Unknown, Time: Unknown

I don't know how long I lay there in what I could only describe as grass. What it really was, I have no idea. The lack of synthetic materials puzzled me. I think I dozed off at some point, and somewhere along the way it occurred to me that I still had my automated memory log implant in my cranium. This would definitely be a day worth reading back on if I make it through it.

Eventually I could no longer just sit there, I had to at least get up and move around. I started walking towards the thinly spaced trees (I guess they were) and started making my way through them. I smiled a bit as I thought how, even though I was lost in the unknown, I was still ever the scientist, ever the explorer. I came to another clearing, and I stopped very suddenly. There was something in the clearing, walking on four legs instead of two. It looked like it was made of red, exposed, raw muscle and ligaments, for the most part. Then it looked at me and I knew exactly what I was looking at. This had to be Rahu in its undeveloped, unmutated state.

We stared at each other across the field for a few moments, my hand slowly moving towards my Robo cube. Rahu was the first to move and turned to fully face me and took a few steps closer. I instinctively activated my Robo cube in a slight panic, much as I tried in vain to remain calm and objective. When faced with this, it just wasn't working.

To my surprise, my Robo cube activated and deployed around me, which was a new experience. Rather than blurring out in a dive, it was like it just came alive around me and I became it in that instant. Even more to my surprise, it was not damaged at all. It was sleek, shiny, and even the wing that had been broken earlier was back in full repair. The weapons I had equipped earlier were in my hands, and I was fully equipped and repaired for battle. I don't know how it happened, but it happened.

Against the Ultimatum, I knew the group of us stood no chance, and against Rahu, I would normally come to the same conclusion, especially facing it on my own, but against this one, undeveloped as it was and without any cybernetics or armaments, I wasn't sure. I kept my guard up either way. I was astonished when Rahu actually jumped back as if it was surprised and even afraid. It backed up a few steps after that. Maybe I was more than a match for it after all. I pressed the intimidation by spreading my wings and hopping forward, trying to look big and scary. Did I really just say "big and scary"? Oh yes, very scientist-like vocabulary.

Rahu continued its retreat a few more steps before turning around into a full run on all fours away from me. My panic subsided, and was replaced by relief. I could not believe that Rahu, even unmutated, was intimidated by me. Maybe the stories and logs exaggerated its power after all.

My relief did not last long, I'm afraid. Rahu stopped at the edge of the clearing near some thicker trees and turned back around to face me. It then started advancing back towards me. I raised my weapons and spread my wings again, but it didn't even flinch this time. I was less panicky this time, but when the shadows in the trees seemed to start moving, I felt a bit more uneasy. My panic returned completely when out from the darkness under the trees, three more identical creatures came into view, and behind them no less than a dozen more. All the stories and research notes I had read or heard only spoke of one Rahu, and now my eyes were clearly watching a small army of them advance upon me.

I turned to flee the way I came, but between me and the trees was another handful of Rahus. Is the plural Rahus or just Rahu? I don't think the word has ever been pluraled before, but there goes my scientist mind again. Staying calm was out of the question at this point; I was surrounded. No amount of reciting equations was going to alleviate my panic in this situation. I folded my wings slightly and pointed a weapon in each direction. Would an EMP from my bomb hand even affect them? They looked completely biological. My AI kept making my trigger fingers itch with all the vibrations it was sensing in the ground through my feet.

I didn't want to be the first to fire. If a fight was avoidable, I definitely wanted to avoid it. As they closed in on me, they actually looked more… curious than anything. One came particularly close to me and I quickly pointed my gun at it, to which it reacted by stepping back suddenly and making what sounded like a mix of a shriek and a hiss at me.

And that did it for the cursed AI in my Robo. Whether it was the vibration made by the sudden step or something else, it forced my trigger finger to pull, firing a disk from my gun that cut clean through the Rahu at which I was pointing. I was used to seeing Robos explode or otherwise remain deactivated in a holoseum, but the Rahu that I eliminated glowed a bright yellow to where its features and color could not be seen, then the glow suddenly disappeared, taking the Rahu with it. It was just gone.

This sent the other Rahus into a frenzy of hiss-shrieking. I had not meant for my AI to go off like that. Just like the other scientists in the earlier battle with the Ultimatum, my advanced equipment had bitten back at me. My AI took over again and made me turn and slash my disk gun through the air, which cut down another Rahu that had apparently jumped at me from behind. I realized I was under attack, and I let my AI take over most control to keep me alive.

All of the Rahus around me were now clambering to get a piece of me. My AI expanded a disk on my gun to act as a close range weapon. It had me spinning, kicking, and dodging in ways I did not know were possible, but it was keeping me alive. It was using vibrations it felt in the ground through my feet and the air through my wings to calculate where everything was and how to counter it, and every Rahu I cut down vanished with the same strange yellow glow. I couldn't even tell exactly what I was doing since my AI was doing so much of the work. All I could tell is it was doing a great job of keeping me alive.

I can't say exactly how it happened, but I suppose my AI just couldn't keep up with the volume of attacks that were coming my way, and a Rahu managed to get a grip on my arm. From there, I found myself under a pile of them rather quickly, then everything blurred out and went dark as my Robo was torn apart.


	13. Chapter 13: Who Are You?

Chapter 13: Who Are You?

Fletch looked up at Noki in disbelief, but took her extended hand with his own and she helped him to his feet. He looked at his Robo arm, which had been cut cleanly through at the forearm. "How can you claim that was a friendly duel when we are both down one arm? We're completely useless now, and there is still an attack on the city going on. Not to mention you chose to attack me when we still don't even know what is going on around us."

Noki looked at Fletch with a slightly perturbed glare, "Correction, YOU don't know what is going on." Fletch gave her a curious look, but before he could say anything, she turned and started pacing around while she continued in a frustrated rant, "NONE of you know what is going on. Everyone on our side is just stumbling about without a clue as to what is happening. Our leaders act like they're in control and this is some big, organized operation, but in truth they are just as confused as you are!" At this point, Noki was back in front of Fletch, almost confronting him, "And you're so confused you think protecting that little boy over there is going to do anything for him, but in truth it's not because none of this is real!"

There was a pause of silence while Fletch waited to make sure she was done talking. When he was sure, he said, "We're not sure of that."

"Wrong again, YOU aren't sure of that. I, on the other hand, am positive this is a holoseum. Robo's cannot exist in the physical world, and even when they did in the past they were only a few inches tall. But honestly, if you need further proof, you can move both your arms."

Fletch wasn't completely convinced, "I've always been able to move both my arms in my Robo."

Noki nodded, "Exactly. Look."

Fletch looked down at himself and discovered that he was no longer in Robo form. He was completely human, and what was more, he could move his left arm just as easily as he could in his Robo. But there was still something odd, "How did you know about my arm?"

Noki looked around the area as she replied, "You're something of a known figure among our group." She looked around a bit more, her canine ears twitching, "I'll explain more, but we need to get off the street for now and keep moving. She started walking briskly towards a nearby building.

"Wait, what about him?" Fletch stopped her and indicated the boy, who was still hugging a nearby wall in fear.

"He can't come with us where we are going. It is far more difficult to fight while defending someone," Noki said, and waited for Fletch to start following her. Fletch stood his ground and folded his arms. Noki sighed, "All right fine," then to the boy, "You can come with us to a safe place." The boy didn't move, keeping his eyes fearfully on Noki.

Fletch commented, "I think you scared him when you attacked me."

Noki sighed again, then closed her eyes, and as Fletch watched, her Robo's armor plating seemed to fold back onto itself, retracting and disappearing until it was all gone, leaving Noki standing there in her human form, the first time Fletch had seen her this way. Her hair was cut short, apparently dyed the same bright white as her Robo, and somewhat disorganized. Her clothes were all white as well. It seemed to be her signature color. She had a modest but sleeveless top that did not hang loose anywhere, and her boobs were moderately flat. Her shorts were the same, formfitting to her shape and barely reaching mid-thigh. Her socks were rather long, reaching just above her knees, and her shoes just barely larger than her feet. And all of it was just as white as her hair and her Robo. When her transformation was complete, she opened her eyes, which were silvery in color. Whether this was because of contacts or natural coloring was unknown. She looked back at the boy, "Is that better?" The boy gave a timid nod before slowly and shakily standing up and following them.

Noki turned to continue walking, and Fletch noticed two things. Firstly, Noki still had a dagger sheathed on her back at hip level identical to the one she had on her Robo. Secondly, she also still had the same tail as her Robo attached to her shorts. "Um…. Noki?"

Noki kept moving and didn't even turn when she answered, "I'll explain in a moment, but we need to get off the street before more Robos show up." As she got close to the front of the building towards which she was walking, the door opened automatically and she walked through without slowing down.

Having something explained momentarily sounded much better to Fletch than the "I'll explain later" he had been hearing the past 24 hours, so he followed Noki through with no further discussion, leading the boy who was following behind him.

Noki looked around. They were in the lobby of an office building. Noki had just scanned the room to make sure it was clear when there were sounds outside of metal on pavement, indicating to them that there were more enemy patrols outside. Noki put a finger to her lips in the sign of silence to Fletch, then pointed to an electronic door on the side wall. Fletch nodded and headed towards it, leading the boy right behind him. Fletch tried the panel to open it, but it was locked. He turned and whispered, "It's locked!" but Noki was no longer behind him. "Noki?"

At that time, the front door opened again and two Robos entered, one Shining Fighter and one Aerial Beauty. As soon as Fletch noticed they had weapons, he concluded that they were not friendly and put a finger to his lips to indicate to the boy to be quiet. The boy had not looked yet and was scared, but nodded in compliance. The two Robos scanned the room, and Fletch knew if they looked far enough to the side, they would see him, so he looked for the nearest cover. There was a sofa about 8 feet away. It wasn't much for physical protection, but it would keep them from being seen. He picked the boy up lightly and made a quick dash for the sofa as fast and quietly as he could.

One of the Robos caught the movement from the corner of its vision and fired its weapon in Fletch's direction. There was an explosion and a thick cloud of smoke filled that portion of the room. Both Robos kept their eyes in that direction, weapons pointed and watching for any further movement through the smoke, but there was nothing.

As if out of nowhere, the two were set upon from behind by a familiar one-armed white wolf-like Robo. Noki jumped between them, dagger in hand, and spun. The blue edged blade of the dagger cut cleanly through the weaker neck armor of the Aerial Beauty, and ended up implanted directly through the faceplate of the Shining Fighter. The former glowed bright yellow upon having its head separated from its body, while the latter twitched and sparked a bit before doing the same, and they both vanished slowly.

Noki twirled her dagger once before replacing it in its sheath. "You can come out. We're clear." There was no response and no movement. "I know you're fine, let's keep moving."

Fletch stood up from behind the sofa where he and the boy had made it safely, "You could have gotten us killed."

Noki responded simply, "Wrong."

"You had no way of knowing we wouldn't get hit!"

"As I've said already, this is a holoseum. Even if you had gotten hit, you would not have been killed. This holoseum has special properties, but is not designed to end anyone's life. Regardless, you are unharmed, so I don't understand why you are complaining."

Fletch grumbled at Noki's attitude. He then noticed that while her Robo only had one good arm, her other side was repaired up to the elbow. Fletch clearly remembered tearing it off from the shoulder. Before he could say anything, Noki reverted back to her human form and walked past him, "We needed a way past the door anyway." Fletch then noticed that where the wall had been hit, there was now a hole that led through the wall and came out under a staircase on the other side. Noki stepped through, followed by Fletch after he had gathered the boy again.

"Why couldn't you have just cut through the door with your knife? Why did you have to put as at risk instead?"

Noki was halfway up the stairs, but she stopped and looked back, offended, "It's a weapon, not a lockpick! I respect it enough to retain its dignity," and continued up the stairs. Fletch didn't quite understand Noki's personification of her dagger, but he could tell she was serious about it, and left the matter alone.

At the landing for the second floor, Noki stopped next to a door, "We can leave the boy here."

Fletch shook his head, "We can't just leave him somewhere by himself. He's terrified enough as it is.

"He won't be alone," Noki said as she pounded on the door twice with her fist while still looking at Fletch. The door immediately slid open.

And there were no less than five weapons pointed at them from the room inside.


	14. Chapter 14: Please Explain

Chapter 14: Please Explain

Fletch was startled, but remained composed as he looked at Noki suspisciously, "Noki, what's going on?"

Noki didn't say anything, but one of the Robos that was pointing a weapon from inside the door demanded, "Identify yourself!"

"Can't you see we're civilians? Lower your weapons!" Noki barked at them.

"Were you followed?" one of them asked, weapons still raised.

Noki tapped a finger on her elbow, annoyed, "All followers have been dealt with. We have someone to drop off and places to be, and not much time on our hands, so either lower the weapons or use them."

The speaker for the armed Robos hesitantly lowered his weapon slowly, then nodded to the others to do the same. They stood down. "All right, you can come in. Just don't cause any trouble, and keep quiet. We don't want to give away our location."

Noki remained relaxed through the entire exchange, "We're just dropping one off. And quiet won't be a problem. He's not said a word since we picked him up, though he may need some therapy after this."

Fletch repeated his question, "So… what's going on? What is this?"

The guard at the door ushered the boy inside and explained, "We're gathering civilians here to keep them safe as best we can. We were able to overpower some of the attacking Robos and took their weapons. It's safe here, you're sure you don't want in?"

Noki nodded, "We have things to do, but thanks for taking the kid off our hands," then turned to continue up the next flight of stairs, "Let's go Fletch, we need to keep moving."

Fletch rolled his eyes slightly before nodding in appreciation to the guard and following her. Noki was moving slightly faster now, and Fletch had to jog slightly to keep up. "So do you feel like explaining things a bit more now?"

Noki rounded the next landing to continue upward, "As long as you can talk and move at the same time. We can't afford any more delays."

Fletch kept pace with her, "Don't worry, I'll keep up." He again took notice of the white tail that was attached to her shorts, and made a mental note to ask about that if she didn't come around to it on her own.

Rounding another flight of stairs, Noki started her explanation. Fortunately, her mouth wasn't moving as fast as her feet, "This holoseum has special properties. The device they brought in with them reads the entire area in its range, creates an exact replica as a holoseum, and forces everyone into it, whether they have a robo or not. Anyone without a robo enters in human form." They reached the top of the stairs where there was a door to the roof. It was locked, but Noki gave it a forceful slam to open it.

They were blinded briefly by the sudden faux-sunlight from the ceiling of the dome city, but once that wore off, Noki continued as they crossed the rooftop at a brisk jog, "While in robo form, your energy will deplete steadily. Once your robo reaches 5% energy, you are forced into human form, and while in human form, the energy level increases and your robo is repaired." Fletch remembered earlier how he had changed from robo to human seemingly at random and realized it must have been the steady energy drain bringing him below the five percent threshold. Noki picked up speed to a near-sprint near the edge of the building and leapt. The adjacent building was a story shorter and across a sizeable gap, but Noki was able to clear it and land with a roll. Fletch attempted to follow her, but being the less physically fit of the two his landing was not nearly as graceful, to put it mildly.

Strangely enough, Fletch noted, he didn't feel any pain from the hard landing and was able to recover and keep following as Noki continued, "Since it is still a holoseum, you still won't feel any pain that remains within the safety tolerances, even when in human form. You can still take damage in any form, however, and if your energy reaches zero, you are removed from the holoseum, but kept in mental stasis until the holoseum is closed." They reached another building edge, and Noki put one hand up to silently tell Fletch to stop. Looking down, there was an enemy squad of four robos on the street beneath them. Noki looked around to make sure there were no other enemies in sight.

Noki brought her voice to a whisper, "You can manually change form between robo and human with the same kind of mental command you would normally use to exit a holoseum." At that, Noki half-dove off the edge, and as she fell, her robo armor reappeared piece by piece and deployed around her, transforming her completely by the time she landed hard on one of the Robos, bringing it to the ground with her dagger in its neck. As the other three turned at the noise, Noki leapt forward with a spin, cleaving through two more. She continued her fluid motion with a lunge at the last remaining robo, who was only just then raising his weapon, but Noki was upon him before it was in an effective firing position. She pushed forcefully on his shoulder while sweeping fast with her foot to knock him off balance. While he was in mid-fall, Noki repositioned and brought her dagger hand down hard, slamming the robo to the ground with her dagger embedded in its chest armor.

As all four robos disappeared, Noki reverted back to human form, still on one knee with her dagger in her hand. There were some cracks in the ground where the fourth robo had landed violently. Fletch landed on his feet behind her in robo form, which he had tried shifting to before hopping over the edge, just to be safe. Once he was safely on his feet, he reverted back to human form as well. Noki stood up and re-sheathed her dagger after twirling it once, "Robos here can also be eliminated very quickly if you can hit vital points that aren't as vulnerable in normal holoseums. Now, our robos are still not fully charged, and we still have some ground to cover, so now that you know how this holoseum works, what else can I explain for you?"

Noki continued walking as Fletch noticed her dagger and tail again, so he asked, "Well, can you explain the-"

Noki interrupted, "Oh yes, the blade and the tail. I did say I would explain those, didn't I. I train for robo battles without my robo, since moving in a holoseum is easier. By training outside of one, I can fight more effectively when I am in my robo. The dagger is built into my Robo, so I also use one to train, and fighting with a tail like my robo has can take some getting used to, so I have one pinned to my shorts so I remain accustomed to it."

Fletch raised an eyebrow as they kept moving at a near jog. She made it sound like robo commanding was her lifestyle, rather than a hobby or profession. She was a fanatic. He didn't say anything about it though, accepting her explanation as reason enough. "So that's how you move so fast? I've never seen a robo move as quickly as yours."

Noki stopped at near a corner of the building and flattened her back against it, silently indicating for Fletch to do the same. Not a moment later, several larger robos came out of the alley with their weapons pointed in various directions. They looked down the street both ways, but Noki and Fletch were so close and so much smaller than them that they were unnoticed. The Robos turned away from them to continue on. Noki signaled for Fletch to move with her as she turned the corner into the alley. She finally answered his question in a hushed tone, "That, and my robo is built for mobility. Burning Beast models are extremely rare and very hard to build, but we dug up some of the old Wolfen robos a while ago. They were far too sluggish, so we took them apart and rebuilt them from the ground up to make these." They stopped at another corner and Noki checked around it to make sure all was clear before they continued; "Now they're hardly anything like the old ones, but they still use the Burning Beast robotics, which was the real goal."

There was only one other question on Fletch's mind that he expected Noki to be able to answer, "So where exactly are we going?"

Noki pointed ahead of them. A few blocks away, the towering Ray Robos Production HQ could be seen above all the other buildings, "The same place as everyone else. That's when the fighting gets tricky."

"Well, with the way you fight, we should be fine," Fletch offered as a compliment.

Noki sped her pace up just slightly, "You've not seen me at my peak yet. When I'm fighting for real, you'll know it."


	15. Chapter 15: Moving Forward

Chapter 15: Moving Forward

"Lynx, we're taking heavy fire from the rooftop across the street! Requesting support" Ronnie reported as he took cover underneath a windowsill. He and Wade's squad were pinned down under explosions and gunfire from their position on a windowed second story hallway. Across the street, a few stories above them, hostile robos on the roof were firing their weapons at the building walls, windows, and supports. Fortunately it was holding, for now, though shaking with each large explosion.

Lynx came back over the officers' comm. channel, "Copy that. Hawk squad, fall back and circle around to block G-12. Hostiles on the roof engaging friendlies across the east street. Use disarm protocols, see if we can get some more weapons into this fight. Tank squad, hold steady and cover their retreat. Shadow squad, push the right and watch that flank." From his spot in the ops center of the base, he was watching the battle unfold on a grid of the city and directing squads forward through hostile territory. The men he had working the computer stations were busy monitoring communications and security cameras across the battle zone to keep the map updated. Others were coding new interface items for the individual robos.

The Loyalist squads had spread out so as to avoid being pinned down in one location again, and were steadily moving towards the central tower where Strike and his men were congregating. A few of Ronnie's more mobile squads had been able to acquire weapons from enemy robos and were distributing them to the lesser-armed loyalists. They were still mostly unarmed, but with each new weapon acquired, their overall combat power rose.

"Sir, what happens to us if our robo gets destroyed? I haven't seen anyone still there, and I don't want to die out here," said one of the robos with Ronnie.

Another explosion shook the building as Ronnie tried to come up with a reassuring answer, "I don't know, but if it was lethal, I doubt they would put themselves at as much risk as they are." Ronnie was not entirely convinced himself, but did not have much time to think on it before the building rocked unusually violently.

"They're trying to bring it down on us!" Wade proclaimed after stealing a glance out one of the windows and saw the enemies firing at the walls supporting the floor above them..

"Can we move forward?" Ronnie asked. He wished Fletch had given him a less restrictive gun in terms of how it could be safely used.

"Negative! They're hitting the windows in front of us particularly hard! They're trying to keep us pinned down."

Ronnie then inquired through the comms, "Hawk squad, I need an ETA on our backup."

"We need at least sixty seconds to get onto the rooftops and then across to your location," Hawk squad's leader replied.

The building shook again, and cracks could be seen and heard forming in the walls. Ronnie commed in again, "That will be thirty seconds too late. Step on it. Lynx, can you send a 3D diagram of this street to my visor."

Lynx came back quickly, "We're on it." He signaled to the men working one of the ops center computer stations and they got to work very quickly.

"What are you going to do?" Wade asked.

"I'm going to bring the building down." At that moment, the diagram Ronnie had requested loaded up on his robo visor's interface. He used it to examine the height of the building he was in compared to the one across, as well as the width of the street between, ran a few rough calculations in his head quickly, and was already out the window before Wade could ask what the heck he was thinking.

As he fell, Ronnie fired his weapon across the street. Being airborne allowed him to avoid the stray tangent shots from his own weapon, while the rest scattered and hit the opposite building. Ronnie hit the street below amid some explosions directed at him, though none were direct since they were fired hastily before the enemies had to take cover briefly to avoid getting hit by his own weapon fire. He turned quickly to examine the damage to the building still housing Wade and his squad. There were plenty of places where explosions had punched holes in the walls and windows, but the majority of the damage was in the pillars. The building had no first floor to speak of. That space was occupied by an open parking area with only one wall at the back end away from the street, which contained the stairs and elevator. The entire building was held up by large pillars, and the ones closest to the street had taken most of the damage.

Ronnie didn't take long to decide where he needed to hit. He ran straight at the middle street-side pillar. He heard the weapon fire from the enemies behind and above him start again, and he knew they were aiming at him now. The bombs and guns would be hitting the street around him any moment. He leapt forward with his knees curled and one arm protecting his face, while the other held his gun and fired it at very close range directly at the pillar. He immediately felt the shockwave of the explosion fling him backwards across the street very strongly, compounded by the impact of enemy weapons detonating in front of him as he flew backwards through the air. Even though he was curled to take the shock, it could only do so much.

As he landed, Ronnie skidded across the pavement to the curb, over which his momentum flipped him, and he slammed into the wall of the less damaged building before flopping to the sidewalk. His impact left a significant dent in the wall, let alone the damage his robo's armor suffered as a result. As his head cleared he looked up and across the street to see the building leaning steadily. The pillar he had shot was completely blasted through, and the adjacent pillars had taken some hits from the sideways shots from Ronnie's weapon. The remaining pillars crumbled and gave way, turning the building's motion into a full-on tilt directly into the street.

Ronnie had determined that the building was taller than the street was wide, he just hoped it was undamaged enough to hold together when the roof impacted the wall of the other building across the street. Ronnie put up an arm to protect himself from some falling pieces of glass and metal from one building raking on the other. The screeching sound of metal on metal rang loudly for a few moments as the falling building raked down the side of the one still standing, until it finally stopped, suspended at an angle above the street, effectively blocking the enemies on the roof from attacking them anymore.

Ronnie shook off the glass shards that were on top of him, and asked through the comm, "Wade, are you alright in there?" He put a hand on the wall to support himself as he stood up. His head was still spinning, and he didn't see his weapon anywhere.

To his relief, Wade responded with a cough, "A little shaken, but we're ok." One at a time, Wade and his squad dropped out of the now-angled building through the windows to land on their feet.

Another voice came through the comms, "Hawk Squad reporting success. Enemies on the rooftop down, weapons acquired."

Lynx responded, "Copy that, Hawk Squad. All units, mop up the last of the enemy robos in the city and gather at the rendezvous point. Commander, I've also got the Ray Robos CEO on the line."

Ronnie was finally able to stay on his feet at this point, though he still kept a hand on the wall for balance, "Patch him through on the officers' channel, Lynx."

There was a brief silence, then Lynx came back, "All right, you're on with CEO Travis Adams."

Wade was the last one to hop down to the street from the building. He looked to Ronnie, who waved him forward with his hand as he said through the comm channel, "Mr. Adams, good to finally hear from you."

Adams responded, "I'm sure you can understand we're a little busy here. Who exactly are you?"

Ronnie started walking up the street after Wade and his squad as he replied, "For the safety of myself and my men, I can't be too specific, but I command a group of seventy-five skilled robo commanders, and I'd like to offer our assistance."

The sounds of robo weapon fire could be heard faintly in the background, "I would appreciate that, but there's no way you can get to me in time. They've already reached my floor, and my security teams haven't been able to hold any ground in here for long."

"I still think we can be of help. They are after something in that building, something of more importance than yourself."

Adams said with a relatively calm tone for the circumstances, "We just make robos here. Civilian grade ones, no less; you can buy them at any robo store in almost any dome. Everything better is made at another location, why would they come here looking for something of any importance?"

Ronnie sighed, "Mr. Adams, the people attacking the city are led by the man whole stole the Ultimatum. Your company made it, so I'm sure you are familiar with it. Whatever you have in there, regardless of how classified or secret it is, they know about it. I can't help if you can't tell me what it is they are after. If you tell me, I can send my men to defend it. Otherwise, whatever it is, they are going to get it." To this, Adams was quiet long enough to prompt Ronnie to ask, "Are you still there?"

Adams finally answered, "I can't tell you what it is. But I can tell you where we are keeping it. If you can protect it, I would be most grateful."

"I'll see that it remains secure. Where is it?"

Adams was hesitant to answer, but the sound of his office door getting blasted open hastened his response, "It's in a secure room, third floor, south wa-" but he was cut off by what sounded very much like an explosion before the line went silent.

Ronnie sighed again before speaking again, "Skyler, did you get all that?"

Skyler responded on the channel, "Affirmative commander, I heard everything."

"We'll draw their attention to the front door. I want you to go around and secure the target. Is the Athena program ready?"

Skyler answered with some trepidation, "Uhh... It's installed, but I haven't had any chance to test it."

"Now is as good a time as any. Lynx, we need to knock on that door."

Lynx responded, "They've noticed our forces forming up across the courtyard and there is a large enemy force exiting the building to oppose us. They easily outnumber us two to one."

Ronnie was nearing the end of the street. His forces were gathering where it opened up into a courtyard and parking lot between them and the corporation headquarters, and across the way he could see another mass of robos forming up to defend it. "Skyler, get moving. We'll handle this. Lynx, battle command if yours."

Lynx thought for a moment, examining the scene laid out on the screen in front of him. There was about 100 yards of open ground between the buildings of the city and the much taller headquarters building. The loyalists numbered around fifty, since they had taken some losses, not to mention the few base staff that were coordinating from the base or otherwise unable to fight. The original syndicate's displayed forces, on the other hand, numbered just over a hundred, spread out in front of the building and holding their position. To compound the disadvantage, only about half of the loyalists were armed with stolen weapons, while the opposing original syndicate were fully armed with guns, bombs, and pods. From one of the highest windows, in Adams's office, Strike stood visible, viewing the scene as well and directing his own forces. That, though, gave Lynx an idea.

"Commander, I need you to climb the building on your right. I want you to stand on the edge and wait there."

Ronnie disagreed a little, "Lynx, we're trying to keep our identity hidden. If Strike sees my robo, he'll know this is where we keep our base. He'll know who we are."

"That's what I'm counting on. Just trust me and get up there. All heavy defense or unarmed robos, form ranks in the center. Everyone else, create similar columns on the right and left, ten meter spacing."

Ronnie took a fire escape up the side of the building. It was only four stories, nothing compared to the corporation HQ, but it still put him in a noticeable position. From there he could see what would be the battlefield more clearly, as well as the target building, and Strike's Ultimatum watching from the upper floors. Lynx commed out to all robos again, "All units, hold position and standby for your battle orders. This is it."


	16. Chapter 16: Clash

Chapter 16: Clash

Stike and four of his ranking lieutenants had secured the top floor of the robo production office building, all still in robo form. Strike stood near the window of Adams' office overlooking the courtyard where his own army and an unidentified force stood across from each other. They were far too organized to be a militia, and not uniform enough to be police. Really that only left one other possibility in Strike's mind, for he was no fool.

He turned to his officers, each of whom had their own area of responsibility in the operation they were undertaking, and each were in communication with the robos assigned to their task. This way, his field command structure was mobilized and did not require a base of operations. "Nox, status of your men?"

Nox was in a dark grey Shining Fighter. It was once a Splendor model, but had been refitted in so many ways as to be no longer recognizable. He was in charge of the men guarding the device that was brought in from the train station, which generated the city-wide holoseum that everyone was inside of. Nox answered promptly, "All was normal at their last check-in. Next one is due in two minutes."

Strike looked over his shoulder at the Loyalist army across the courtyard below, then turned to his second officer, "Lute, how many squads do you still have available?"

Lute sported a deep crimson Aerial Beauty, Earth robo. It had a rather cat-like appearance that she only emphasized by making it lighter, quicker, and more flexible. She also added pawprints to the palms, and it would have otherwise been cute if the color scheme and several spiky armor mods did not make it look so demonic. She held a hand out, palm up, and a small display of the city appeared as a hologram. Various colored dots in the image represented the squads scattered around the city that she had been in charge of. "A good number were taken out by that other army, but I have three squads that have cleared their areas of civilians and are awaiting new orders. Shall I send them to join the main force?"

Strike disagreed, "No. Send every robo under your command to help guard the generator. Pull them off of their assignments, gather up any stragglers, anyone that is not in this building or with the main force should be directed to guard that generator. There is absolutely nothing more critical." He addressed the third of his officers, "Jade, how long do your men need to breach the vault?"

Jade used a brilliant green Strike Vanisher that she had customized for a more feminine body shape. As an accomplished thief, she was best fitted for the command of the team in charge of cracking the vault that contained the item that the entire operation was about. She had two fingers to the side of her head for most of the mission, keeping in constant contact with her team to make sure absolutely nothing went wrong. "It's more solid than we expected, but my team should have it open in a matter of minutes. Four at the most, I'm told."

Strike nodded, "I'll hold you to that." He turned back around and looked out the main window again, but this time he noticed Ronnie standing on top of the tallest building directly across the way. This confirmed what he had already suspected, "Lute, get your men to the generator as fast as you can. I have a feeling it's about to get hit." Lute nodded and turned, taking a few steps away to give the orders to her men.

At that time, the Loyalists started to advance slowly. They were divided into three columns, each moving directly forward towards the building. "Zai, are your men ready?"

Zai was the fourth officer in the room. He was a former officer in the police force, and still used his dark blue Metal Ox from those days. He nodded and said in a deep, confident voice, "Awaiting your command."

Strike pointed out at the field, "They are expecting us to be on the defensive. Press the attack and have our men punch through their center formation hard and take out the commander on that building. If he is eliminated, the remaining opposition will be disorganized and easy to mop up. That should give us all the time we need."

Zai nodded and gave orders through his communicator, "All forces, wedge formation. Put heavy pressure on their center ranks and target the enemy commander." Strike's main force responded well and quickly formed up in a triangle formation, weapons ready. Zai gave the final order, "Advance!" and the formation began the charge, aimed directly at the Loyalist center column. As Strike's main force got close, the center ranks of heavy Loyalist robos slowed and braced for an attack. As the first wave of weaponfire from the triangle hit, very concentrated at the center, the center column started to drop back. Even the heavily armored robos could not stand long against concentrated fire of that power. They kept whatever defenses they could up, using their heavily plated arms, keeping their heads tucked, but they were slowly driven back, and the center began to crumble. Without weapons to return fire, the Loyalists did not stand much of a chance. Strike smirked as he watched the battle unfold and saw the Loyalist lines starting to break.

With his tunnel vision centered on taking out Ronnie, however, Strike had overlooked the other two columns that had continued advancing on either side of his own forces. He had discounted their importance, expecting them to halt their advance once their commander was eliminated. But the battle turned quite rapidly. In one coordinated move, the retreating armored robos stopped and planted their feet firmly in the ground, their plating absorbing the attacks still coming their way. From the flanking columns, the Loyalist robos that had secured weapons earlier rose up and fired a volley directly at the front ends of the triangle formation, slowing their advance. At the same time, both the right and the left columns turned and closed off all openings around Strike's men, effectively surrounding them. They continued firing their weapons at the backs and sides of the advancing robos as all the unarmed robos charged straight in, securing the advantage.

Zai and Strike watched as the main force of the Original Syndicate was thrown into chaos. Zai tried to reorganize them through his communicator, but there was so much comm traffic he could not get a word in that would be heard or followed.

Strike grumbled, "Zai, get down there and use the main entrance as a bottleneck. I need you to keep them out as long as you can. Jade, send anyone in the building that is available to-"

Jade, her hand still on her ear, interrupted him, "Sir, there's an intruder alert at the vault! They snuck in during the battle, and they're taking my men out!"

Strike grumbled louder, his plans all going awry, "Jade, get everyone you can to the vault and get down there yourself. Sorry Zai, you're on your own."

Zai nodded, "I'll manage," before exiting the room to go secure the entrance on the ground floor.

Jade started to follow him, then asked Strike, "What about you, sir? We could use the Ultimatum in this fight."

Strike shook his head, "I can't. It's taking all the concentration I have to maintain focus. I'm in no condition to fight."

Jade nodded, "I understand, sir," and headed out after Zai. Lute and Nox remained in the office with Strike.

* * *

Skyler had managed to sneak around the battle to the back of the building and scaled the wall to a third floor window. She was using a turquoise Aerial Beauty, Sol robo. It was quite light and nimble, as was typical of Aerial Beauties. She carefully peeked in and saw one side of the vault. It was against the wall, so she could not see the front, but she could see several robos gathered around its entrance, presumably trying to get inside. Skyler took a deep breath, and through her visor interface activated her most recent project in robo science, which was installed in her robo. She felt her robo seize up a tiny bit as the program charged and activated, but once it was done she felt normal again, though slightly empowered. Her robo's eyes glowed a deep, bright blue as if illuminated with a neon light. A small message in the inside of her robo visor confirmed that it was running, reading "Athena Program: Active" along with a timer at 60 seconds and counting down. The program required a drain of her energy to remain active, and once her energy was exhausted, it would have to shut down.

She grabbed the top of the window, swung back and kicked the window in with both feet, shattering the glass. The robos inside reacted and fired their weapons at her before she had even landed on her feet. She had no weapons, but did not need any. As the energy bolts reached her, they were absorbed into what looked like a portion of a blue energy shield that formed around Skyler. The blue shield appeared at every spot where a shot would have hit her, before vanishing, leaving her robo undamaged. There were only four robos in the room, but as she made her entrance, three more entered, also discharging their weapons at her to no effect. Skyler sprung off her feet in a dive towards the robos closest to the vault, who stepped back and away from her, still trying to hit her with their weapons but not seeming to damage her with each successful shot.

As Skyler rolled to her feet in the middle of the four robos, she held her arms out with her elbows bent and spun quickly in place. More of the same blue energy formed just past her hands in flat surfaces and spun with her, creating two scythe-like shapes that quickly expanded outwards and cut through the robos around her. Their top halves separated from their legs just before glowing yellow and vanishing. The three that had entered were stunned, and one called "Intruder! Intruder!" before firing a ball of plasma from his bomb launcher at Skyler. She put her hands up as if to block, and the ball became engulfed in blue energy, suspended briefly. Some more blue energy seemed to slide off Skyler's arms, adding itself to the now larger ball, and then was released back in the direction it came as Skyler took a step forward and thrust her arms out. The ball punched clean through the robo's armor before exploding.

The remaining two robos fired what looked like constant streaming weapons, as opposed to burst projectiles, at her. Skyler stopped each of the streams with a hand, holding them for a moment, then as she twisted her wrists, the streams slowly turned blue and she thrust her arms forward again, reversing the flow of energy and causing the guns to both explode, vaporizing their wielders. It was at this time that Jade appeared in the doorway, directly between the two blue beams that Skyler was still keeping suspended. She crossed her arms, bringing the two beams together and intending to catch Jade's green robo between them. Jade was anything but a slow thinker though, and vanished in place, reappearing above the beams, her feet on either side of the door frame to hold her up.

Skyler dissipated the beams and threw her hands out towards Jade several times, each time launching a burst of blue projectile energy. Jade vanished once, then again, and again, each time moving out of the way of the blasts in rapid succession, moving around Skyler, trying to find a way she could get closer to her. She finally vanished and appeared in the air to come down on her with her fists, but Skyler was already turning with a foot in the air, which knocked Jade to the side with a bright blue blast, caused by the energy around her foot.

Skyler sliced a hand through the air after her to send a flat blue slice through the air, but Jade recovered fast enough to roll out of the way and kick off the wall. The slice left a deep mark in the wall when it missed, and Jade had no delusions of how powerful Skyler's attacks were. Jade came at Skyler through the air again, this time vanishing to avoid Skyler's retaliation and appearing behind her. She landed a fist strike to Skyler's side, but upon hitting her, Jade was thrown back with another blast of blue energy that came from right where she had made contact.

Jade was not knocked down this time and skidded on the carpeted floor on her feet, causing some of it to detach from its base. Skyler looked in Jade's direction and stomped one foot on the ground. As she did, yet another blue shape came up from the floor and knocked one of Jade's feet off balance, requiring her to catch herself on her hands. Skyler held both hands out towards her, apart with her palms facing each other as if she were holding a large sphere. At the same time, blue energy appeared around Jade's head, even though she was easily ten feet away. Jade found that she could not move, and soon her head was completely surrounded by the blue translucent matter. Skyler then slammed her palms together, and Jade's robo fell limp, it's headpiece completely crushed, before glowing yellow and vanishing.

Skyler made sure the room was clear and deactivated the Athena program with only a few seconds left on the timer. Her eyes returned to normal, all the blue energy still shimmering on her robo faded, and she could feel that her robo's energy was low. She shakily turned and took a few steps toward the vault door, but noticed that the lock was broken, and the door open a slight bit. She supported herself by holding the vault frame and pushed the heavy door open slowly. There was a pedestal in the middle with a small case on top. She hobbled inside, almost collapsing before reaching the pedestal and found the case unlocked. But when she opened it, it had already been emptied.

She sunk to a sitting position leaning against the pedestal and reported in, "Lynx... the vault is empty. I didn't get here in time... Mission failed." She did not have time to receive a response before the holoseum's automatic energy drain pushed her below the threshold and her robo armor retracted around her, leaving her in her human form. She just sighed and buried her face in her hands.


	17. Chapter 17: Stealthy Approach

**((At the suggestion of a dedicated reader, I will begin including character profiles at the beginning of chapters describing a character, their robo, and a brief biography. I will also post a chapter revision or rewrite for older chapters, including a profile, with each new chapter I post. As the story in my mind has developed, some continuity has been lost, and I mean to fix that with back-edits. With this new chapter, Chapter 1 of Custom Robo: Ultimatum has been greatly revised))**

Name: Nick

Age: 28, Gender: Male

Power: Holoseum Hacking - Nick can enter a battle in progress, and mentally force his robo to dive into anything, regardless if there is a holoseum or not. This can be fatal to its targets.

Robo: Strike Vanisher - Halberd, Dark Blue, Modified Stealth System and Armor

The Halberd is a high grade Strike Vanisher robo with slightly higher attack and mobility ratings at the cost of some defense. The Halberd is roughly human shaped with spiky armor protrusions at the head, knees, and shoulders and a wide triangular shaped visor on the faceplate. Armor is sparse around the joints for increased mobility, and increased at the shoulders and chest to make up some durability. Nick's modified stealth system allows his robo to vanish from sight for longer periods of time at a high mobility cost for the duration, in addition to the Strike Vanisher's inherent ability to seemingly teleport. Nick's armor is slightly modded with blade-like armor protrusions at the elbows and knees more as an ablative joint protection than as an offensive option.

Biography: Nick is a highly ranked police officer with a Class-A license. He prefers close range weapons for tournament style robo battles, but he is very adaptable and flexible in his tactics and abilities. He is trained and experienced in squad tactics, military style protocol, and hand-to-hand combat. His individual skills earned him the honor of becoming the commander of the Ray UM: Ultimatum, which was to be the police force's ultimate weapon, but it was stolen before it could be presented to him. Nick's ultimate goal at that point became to do everything he could to aid in the recovery or destruction of the robo.

* * *

Chapter 17: Stealthy Approach

As the sounds of battle could be heard far in the distance, Nick made his way down the empty streets towards the train station. Kip was nearly beside him the whole time, and behind them, two of the four white robos from Wolf Squad followed, keeping their eyes and ears open for any signs of an ambush. They were keeping mostly to the walls, checking the corners of every side street before crossing, and moving as quietly as possible to avoid detection. Though occasionally it was not enough.

Just as Nick was about to check around a corner, a quick "Sh!" was uttered by one of the wolves and all four of them froze. The sound of metal on pavement as a robo walked could clearly be heard from around the corner.

They heard an unfamiliar voice say "I heard something over here," and all four of them flattened against the wall. Nick had his gun ready to use if he had to, but he would rather not use it lest the robos guarding the device at the train station be alerted to their approach. Stealth was their greatest advantage for the moment.

Nick felt a tap on his arm, and looked to the Wolfen robo behind him. He was Switch, Noki's second in command and the group's only communicator with the officers. Since Nick and Kip's robos were not integrated into the Loyalist comm system, they relied on Wolf Squad to keep in communication with the base and each other. Switch had two fingers to the side of his head where human ears would have been, allowing him to hear the comms better, and held up two fingers on the other hand to silently communicate the number of enemies around the corner. The voice of a second robo was heard around the corner, "Come on, we don't have time. Everyone's being called to the generator, so let's go."

Nick risked a peek around the corner, but pulled his head back immediately. One of the robos around the corner called out as he saw him, "Hey, over there!"

Nick had confirmed that were were indeed only two robos around the corner, and gave Switch a quick nod, "Take 'em."

Switch immediately repeated into his comm, "Take 'em," and there was a brief moment of silence before two metallic thuds were heard. Nick waited just a moment before quickly rounding the corner with his gun raised, followed by Kip who did the same. The other two white Wolfen robos from the squad were the only ones in the alley, standing over the two downed enemy robos they had just dropped upon from the rooftops. As they removed their daggers from the metallic bodies, the downed robos glowed yellow and vanished without a trace, leaving only their weapons behind.

Nick and Kip lowered their weapons, and the two Wolfens that had been with them the whole time rounded the corner as well. With all of them in one place again, Nick asked in a hushed tone, "How far to the generator?"

Switch held a palm up and a 3-dimensional display of their immediate area appeared above it. Down the small alley they were in, the area opened up into a small plaza. On the other side of it, a wide three-story building was the only thing between them and the train station where the generator was located. Nick pointed to the wide building on the display, "Enhance that." Switch tapped it with his free hand and the display isolated the building. After looking over it a moment, Nick continued, "This building will give us the best vantage point. They'll likely have it occupied, so we'll need to clear it out." He handed his gun off to Kip and picked up one of the dropped weapons from the ground. It was a longer weapon made for two hands rather than one. "Once we get a position established, we call in and await orders to take it out. Clear?" The wolves and Kip nodded. Nick continued, "Kip and I can walk in the open since we have their weapons and can pass for friends, but you all will have to stick to cover. Sneak, you take the rooftops. The rest of you, try to keep in ambush positions like before, but stay out of sight. We'll meet back up on the third floor."

Sneak had a stealth generator built into his Robo, allowing him to vanish for short periods of time. It was similar to Nick's, but allowed for greater freedom of movement at the cost of effective time. Sneak nodded and took to climbing the side of the nearest wall using only the windowsills and wall features. He vanished just before reaching the top.

Nick took the lead, walking out of the alley into the open with his weapon raised. Kip was right behind him with both her Wyrm gun and Nick's Plasma Blast held slightly up in a ready position. They both looked around carefully, checking for any signs of other robos in the windows, on the rooftops, or on the ground. Nick whispered, "All clear?"

Kip responded, "All clear."

Nick whispered loud enough for the three Wolfens to hear, "Wolf Squad, you're clear. Go." The three wolves dashed out from the alley like three white blurs, and took to cover, out of sight even from Nick and Kip. Nick whispered again, "Let's move up slowly like we're expecting an ambush. That should allow the wolves to keep up. Do not fire unless fired upon. Cover my six, I'll take point."

Kip nodded, and Nick had barely taken a step when she whispered, "What does that mean?"

Nick sighed, "Cover my six means you watch my back, I'll take point means I have lead."

Kip nodded again, "Ah, ok." Nick took another step, and Kip asked, "Why not just say that then?"

Nick muttered, "You're overthinking it. Just forget it."

The two of them moved up towards the wide building on the other side of the plaza a few steps at a time. Nick kept his eyes out for both enemies and the white wolves alike, and occasionally thought he saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye, but upon looking, it would be gone. Nick muttered under his breath, "They're good."

Nick stopped suddenly as he saw something yellow in one of the windows ahead of them. He instinctively raised his weapon to aim, then released his grip on it as it felt like something grabbed his wrist. He looked at his arm and saw nothing unusual, then repeated the action of gripping and aiming, and saw the weapon connect itself to his robo with several thick wires. Part of his visor changed as well. His right eye suddenly had a zoom vision with two crossed lines while his left remained normal. He could switch from one to the other simply by closing an eye, and no longer had any doubts that this was a long range precision weapon.

Nick aimed and used his zoomed eye to get a better look, and there was indeed a robo in the window; a yellow Splendor robo with a weapon not unlike his own. Nick gave a small wave of acknowledgement and lowered his weapon, hoping he and Kip passed as friendly. The other robo quickly raised its weapon, shouted, "Contact!" and shot a very fast, very straight orange energy shot. Nick flinched, but noticed that the shot was not aimed at him.

It impacted to Nick's left near a shop door. From the small explosion, Nick saw a flash of white, and the enemy fired again. Nick couldn't tell which of the wolves it was, but he knew if he lost Switch, they would lose communications with the ops center. The enemy sentry fired his weapon repeatedly, trying to lead the white blur and anticipate its movement, but it was too fast and kept changing direction too frequently. Nick raised his weapon and fired once, missing intentionally and hitting a store window. Over the sounds of the weaponsfire, he said to Kip, "Follow my lead, aim wide!"

He shot again, hoping the wolfen robo didn't dodge directly into any of his shots. Kip pointed both her weapons and fired as well, cutting a bit closer to the wolf. The plasma blast left a cloud of green smoke and a sizeable explosion while the purple dragon heads from the wyrm gun homed in on their target and missed only thanks to a deft display of agility. Nick fired his weapon a few more times while saying a bit louder, "Aim wide means miss!"

"Sorry!" Kip yelled back, firing again, less accurately this time.

A few more poorly aimed shots from his weapon, and Nick instructed to Kip, "Get some smoke out there, then hold fire!" That one Kip understood at least. She fired the plasma blast weapon several times more, creating a large cloud of smoke around where she had seen the white blur last, then both she and Nick stopped firing. The robo in the window stopped as well, looking down and waiting for the smoke to clear. When it did, Nick and Kip could clearly see the white wolfen robo standing flat against the wall at ground level almost directly under the third story window where the enemy robo was. A small awning kept the wolf out of sight from above as it remained completely still, obviously breathing fast, but quietly.

Nick lowered his weapon and called out to the enemy sentry, "Got him, we're clear!"

The yellow robo in the window called out, "Are you sure?"

Nick responded, "I saw the flash of yellow. He's down."

The enemy robo nodded, satisfied, and lowered his weapon, saying something into his comm system. Sneak suddenly appeared on the roof just above the window with his knife drawn. Nick wanted to wave him off because if a comm message was cut short, it would alert any other enemies. He couldn't do anything without arousing suspicion, and could only watch as Sneak flipped down into the window and took the robo down with his knife and vanished into the building.

Nick thought fast, and yelled out loudly, "Contact!" hoping the wolves would understand what he was trying to do. He turned and picked a random point to fire his weapon at. Between shots, he instructed to Kip, "Shoot where I'm shooting" and continued firing while backing up. Kip didn't understand, but fired her weapons near the same target point, though there was nothing there.

He heard another robo from the building, "Where is it?"

Nick looked over his shoulder and saw there were now several more enemy robos in position at windows on the first floor with their weapons pointed, looking for something to shoot. The second and third floor windows were empty, and Nick caught a glimpse of white disappearing into one of the second floor windows. Still aiming at nothing, he shouted, "I lost visual, but I saw at least two. They took out the sentry on the third floor and fell back into cover!"

He couldn't tell which Robo was talking, but the voice was authoritative and sounded like someone in charge, "Get inside, we've got you covered." Nick nodded to Kip and they both turned and made it to the building's front entrance at a jog. They were alone in the doorway for the moment, and Nick whispered to Kip in a hushed tone, "I'll rendezvous with the wolves up top, you stay at ground level among the enemies and wait for me to signal. I'll wave if I need you to start shooting. We don't take the target out until we have clearance from the base, clear?"

Kip nodded, then whispered back, "Why didn't you just say 'Miss'? It's shorter than 'Aim wide' and much clearer."

Nick sighed and shook his head, "It's a police thing. It's what we do. Just forget it."

At that moment, a robo approached from inside, It was a dark brown Metal Bear with heavily modded reinforced armor. He extended his thick robo hand to Nick and introduced himself, and Nick recognized the voice as the one that had been speaking to them from inside, "Crusher, Hammer Squad actual."

Nick took the hand in a firm handshake. He noticed Crusher had an emblem on his shoulder in the shape of a hammer, "Cutter. I'm all that's left of..." he then remembered the emblem that he'd seen on the squad leader they had fooled earlier, "...Raven squad."

Crusher nodded slowly, eyeing him, and Nick wasn't sure he'd go for it. But Crusher nodded again, "I got word from up top that Raven squad had been taken out. Friendly fire as I heard it."

Nick nodded, "One street over from the central plaza. Complete misunderstanding."

Crusher nodded again and broke the handshake, "Well, the marksman we had up top was one of the last we've got left. Mind taking over his post?"

Nick nodded and gripped his weapon again, "Not at all. I'll head up there now."

He heard Kip silently in his head, "Just how many times are they going to fall for this trick?"

Nick started for the staircase in front of them, and Crusher turned to Kip, "And which squad are you with?" Nick stopped in place and hoped Kip didn't blow it.

Kip was hesitant a moment, "Oh, um... Cat squad."

Crusher eyed her sideways, "Newly formed?"

Kip nodded a bit, "Just the other day." She hastily pushed past the two of them and through the building to the other side.

Nick backed up a few steps and did what he could to maintain his cover, muttering to Crusher, "Keep an eye on that one. She just started following me, and I have no confirmation she's actually one of us."

Crusher turned to look more directly at him, "She won't be a problem" and turned back the way he came. Nick didn't like having to hang Kip out to dry like that, but if she aroused suspicion, at least his cover would remain intact. Nick took to the stairs and climbed to the third floor. He started down the long hallway in one direction, looking for Wolf Squad. He didn't see them until there was already a blade at his throat.

The dagger was retracted, and Sly, the Wolfen robo wielding it, said aloud in a hushed tone, "We're ok. It's Nick." Two other wolves seemed to appear almost out of nowhere just behind him, and Sneak literally did so just in front of him.

"Where's Kip?" Switch asked.

"She's staying at ground level, posing as one of them," Nick answered. "Do we have eyes on the generator?"

Sneak nodded and waved them into a room off the hallway. There was one open window, and from there, Nick could see the generator device. It looked just as it had when it was brought in; a box with a clear dome on top. The only difference was that there was clearly some sort of translucent blue shield forming a bubble around it. It looked like it was made to protect it from weapon fire, though he watched one robo pass right through it as they made some tweaks on a control panel.

In the open area between three buildings and the train station at the edge of the dome, there were no less than twenty robos on the ground, scattered and patrolling, keeping an eye out for any sign of threat. Upon checking through his scoped eye with his gun, he could make out several more robos in the surrounding buildings, including a select few "marksmen" with the same long range weapons as his on the upper floors, keeping watch.

"Switch, you stay with me. The rest of you spread out among these buildings and wait for orders to strike. When weapons go off, I'll likely need someone to take out the generator at close range. That shield looks like it would render weapons ineffective. Kip may be able to handle it, but she might be compromised, so be ready to move in if you need to. Questions?"

Nick was met with silence, and gave a satisfied nod, "Move out." As the three wolves dispersed, Nick took up a sentry position at the window, making sure Switch stayed out of sight. "Switch, call it in. We're in position."


	18. Chapter 18: Immovable

**((With this new chapter, Chapter 2 of Custom Robo: Ultimatum has been rewritten. Also Chapter 11 of Custom Robo: Vehemence has been adjusted to fill a small plot hole and add some more action. Both include a character profile/data file))**

Name: Zai

Age: 43, Gender: Male

Power: Unknown

Robo: Metal Grappler - Metal Ox, Dark Blue

The Metal Ox is the largest legal robo model currently made. Like other Metal Grapplers, the Metal Ox is heavily armored and still relatively slow, but has the highest speed rating of all Metal Grapplers at the cost of just a little offense and defense. The Metal Ox has very broad shoulders with large concave shoulder plates angled to deflect weapon fire. Its chestplate is rounded on the sides for similar deflection with the thickest armoring at the sternum. The head sports a protective faceplate with a visor visible only through two triangular eyepieces and two ox-like horns on the sides of the head. The head itself is almost buried in the chestpiece to protect the neck, a sensitive area usually less protected on other robos. The arms and legs are also heavily armored with slightly lighter armoring around the joints to allow for some movement. The Ox is forced to use a wide stance for any motion, making the smaller abdomen and pelvis its only real weak spots on the otherwise massive chassis. If they were armored as well, the robo would be untouchable, but also immobile. It goes without saying that this robo does not jump very well.

Biography: Zai was a Colonel in the police force once, but the bounds of legality always made him feel like he was not doing his job as well as he could. The "Red Tape" as he put it, was always a problem. A very strong robo commander and forceful leader, he always prefers to face his tasks head-on rather than delegating or waiting for an opportune moment. His independence, impatience, and volatile temper gained the attention of the R-Syndicate, who offered him a chance to do things his own way for the benefit of humanity. The offer came at an opportune time when Zai was infuriated at the police force as it was, and he accepted, quickly gaining an elevated position in the syndicate's ranks. He still uses his robo from his police days, and his intention is still to serve the greater good. The only things that have changed are the methods he is free to use and the lengths to which he is willing to go to accomplish the R-Syndicate's goals.

* * *

Chapter 18: Immovable

The last of Strike's main force had been wiped out in front of the towering structure at the center of the city, though the Loyalists had taken heavy losses in achieving the victory. Ronnie had not taken part in the battle, as part of Lynx's winning strategy, and hopped down to ground level to assess the damage and condition of his remaining forces.

There were no robos left undamaged. All had either heavy scorch marks, detached armor plating, deep armor dents, and some were missing appendages completely. A few had unexpectedly been forced to revert to their human forms, though none of them yet understood why that had happened. The rest had been wiped out completely, leaving Ronnie with about 15 robos left in his force, only half of which were still battle-worthy. Ronnie's own robo showed signs of significant damage from the earlier engagements, namely surviving the close range explosion he had used earlier to tilt a building over the street.

Lynx came in over the channel from the ops center, "Commander, Wolf Squad reports they are in position and awaiting orders to attack the device at the train station."

Ronnie found Wade in the midst of the wreckage, still in one piece fortunately, and helped him to his feet, "Copy that, Lynx. I got that Skyler didn't get to the vault in time, but then I lost her on comms. Is there any other information you can give me?"

"Internal security feeds are down, so we don't have eyes in there. There are still at least a few robos active in the building, but I can't tell you much more than that."

Ronnie said to Wade, "Sort out who can fight from who can't. I need everyone who can walk and hold a weapon ready to move out." Wade nodded and got to it. Ronnie returned to Lynx, "Recovering whatever was in there is our priority. Any of those robos left in there could have it with them. Can you get an infrared scan for their locations?"

Lynx was quiet a moment, "Standby... Ok, we got it. One heat signature on the third floor, I'm guessing it's Skyler still at the vault. Three on the top floor in Adams' office, one of which is probably Strike, and one more on the top floor near the elevator. One on the ground floor near the entrance and not moving, and... what the...?"

"Don't keep me in suspense, Lynx, what is it?"

Lynx sounded confused in his reply, "There in another signature moving up in the elevator shaft, but the elevators are both at ground level.

"One of ours?" Ronnie asked.

"There's no comm signature, so I'd say no. Wade, can we get a head count of combat effective robos?"

Wade came in on the same channel, "We've got seven total who can fight, but only myself and the commander have officer channel access. If we go down, our communications are useless. Fortunately there's plenty of weapons to go around now."

Ronnie began walking towards the assembled robos, "Lynx, tell Wolf squad to stand by. I don't want to take out that device as long as we still have a shot at recovering that item. Whatever it was, Adams made it pretty clear that it's important to keep out of Strike's hands. Once we have it, or at least know what it is, we may have a better idea of what his next move might be, and we can shut the device down."

"Understood. Lynx out."

Ronnie was satisfied with the lineup of robos that were left. There were not many, but they were a few of his more skilled commanders. They were slightly battered, but fully armed and intact. Besides himself in his Splendor robo and Wade in his Strike Vanisher - Glaive, he had at his command a Lightning Sky - Defender from Wade's Radiant Squad, a Metal Bear from Tank Squad, a Trick Flyer - Juggler from Hawk Squad, and twin Little Raider - Swift robos from Dawn Squad. Ronnie picked up two weapons from the ground, since he had lost the weapon Fletch gave him earlier, and addressed the robos before him, "Our primary objective is to clear the building of hostiles and recover an item of value. The item itself is unidentified as of yet, but it will be in the possession of a hostile somewhere inside. Secondary objective if it can't be obtained is to at least identify it." He pointed to the Metal Bear and Defender, "Armor on point," then to the Swifts, "twins on the flanks." They all nodded in affirmation and understanding, and Ronnie nodded back, "Let's move out."

In unison, the Metal Bear and the Defender took the lead towards the building, weapons raised and ready in a tactical walk. The Bear stood with his back to the wall a few feet away from the door with the other robos right behind him. Ronnie said in a hushed tone, "One contact at ground level. Confirm target before engaging, there is at least one known friendly inside."

The Bear nodded, "Ready to breach." The Defender stepped away from the wall, stood back a ways, and fired a bomb from his left hand that blew the door inward with no backwards explosion.

****Breacher (Bomb): Fires a bomb in a straight path, creating a wide, unidirectional explosion that knocks opponents backward with no recoil explosion twards the user. Great against opponents that try to get close. Fusion of Straight-S and Wave bombs.****

The Metal Bear followed the explosion immediately, followed closely by the two Little Raiders, who entered and promptly darted to either side of the entranceway. The Bear had its weapons raised and proceeded straight through the thin cloud of smoke left in the breach bomb's wake. As he entered, three shots and explosions were heard, then there was a moment of silence. "... Commander... I think you should see this."

Ronnie and Wade entered as well, stepping over the destroyed metal door on the floor and through the smoke. When they could see clearly, they got a look at the robo on the first floor. It was an abnormally large dark blue Metal Ox standing at a bottleneck in the lobby, standing between them and the elevators and stairs. In one hand, it held a very broad sword-like blade with toothed edges that was as long as a normal side robo is tall. On the flat of the blade were three splattered scorch marks from recently deflecting explosive projectiles. In its other hand was a large arm-mounted cannon of some sort, slightly larger than the robo's already large arm. These were not weapons any normal sized robo could wield. He stood silently, neither moving nor breathing a word.

The two Swifts stood on either side of the room, their weapons raised and ready to fire at a moment's notice. Ronnie muttered to the Bear, "Any sign of the item on him?"

The Bear shook his head, "No sir. Not that we can see. Except for those weapons, there's nothing that stands out."

Ronnie glanced at the Metal Ox warily, then muttered again, "All right. I'll weaken him, you guys take him out." and the Bear nodded moving slightly off to the side and passing the message to Wade and the Juggler in their group. Wade nodded to Ronnie, who nodded back. Ronnie walked behind a pillar in the lobby and nodded to one of the Swifts, who nodded back in understanding. All the while, the dark blue Metal Ox did not move.

Ronnie stood with his back to the pillar, then rapidly turned to step out of cover with his arms raised to use his weakening power, but immediately ducked back behind the pillar as he saw a large, brightly colored energy wave coming right at him. Though he was behind cover, he was thrown forward amidst some rubble from a shattered chunk of the pillar that came with him. He was disoriented, but he looked to see Wade, the Bear, the Defender, and the Juggler, all firing their weapons, though he couldn't hear the gunfire over the ringing in his ears.

****Shockwave (Gun): Releases a wide energy wave that is difficult to avoid and leaves all affected targets briefly dazed. Best used in holoseums with limited maneuvering space or against robos that can easily avoid more precise attacks. Fusion of Titan and Stun Guns.****

Though dizzy, Ronnie forced himself to his feet, holding the pillar for support. He saw the Metal Ox, still standing at the other end of the room. The two Swifts were sprawled on the floor on either side, and he brandished his sword expertly, utilizing it like a shield, deflecting all incoming attacks. In a fluid motion, he ducked under his sword and fired his arm cannon, releasing another wave of energy that rippled through the room, shattering a large vase on a table and knocking all four of the other robos on their backs, causing the gunfire to cease. The robos all staggered to their feet again. Ronnie racked his brain, trying to find a weakness in this tank of a robo before them.

The Metal Ox spoke in a deep, robotic voice, "You cannot stand against the blade of Colonel Zai, and you will not get through this door. I will entertain your efforts as long as you like, but I will not be defeated."

Ronnie's head was clearing, "So you're Zai, formerly of the police force. I remember you."

Zai planted the tip of his blade in the floor and glared across the room back at Ronnie, "I cannot say you are as memorable. Your cheap tricks with your weakening power prove your lack of skill, so I am not surprised."

Ronnie felt a twinge of fury at that comment, but was determined to not let words be played against him and kept his mind focussed, "You were an honorable man. A good police officer. You won the gold level tournament three years in a row and brought men just like Strike to justice. How could someone like that fall so far as to be just like the criminals he dedicated his life to stopping?"

Zai remained still and spoke steadily, "They probably did not tell you this, but I did not leave the police force of my own volition. I was removed. They fired me. All because I did what was necessary to do my job."

Ronnie felt rage building up inside him like a fire, and strained himself to control it.

Zai continued talking, looking Ronnie in the eye, "My only flaw at the time was my lack of patience. When I met Strike, he showed me how to fix that flaw. Now I am unstoppable, immovable, and invincible. And I am serving a nobler cause than the police force ever has. This is what I was born to do."

Ronnie hissed through what would be gritted teeth under his robo's headpiece, barely containing his anger, "Strike is more of a criminal than any of us! He steals, kills, and destroys without a care for who he hurts! How is there anything noble about that!?"

Zai narrowed his eyes behind his faceplate, "You clearly would not understand. Even so, it is not my place to reveal Strike's endgame. But know this. If you continue to get in our way, everyone will pay the price."

Ronnie could barely keep his thoughts straight as he shook with rage. He looked to the other robos with him, "Wade... Give Wolf squad a ten minute notice. If they haven't heard from us by then, they are clear to complete their objective. If we don't take this guy down, that at least needs to be done." Wade gave a nod of affirmation and put his fingers to the side of his head to relay the message. "The rest of you, spread out and ready weapons. He can't take all of us."

Zai spoke again, his tone still as even as ever, "Of that you are mistaken. I can hold you at bay indefinitely. I could drive you back if I wanted to, but as I said, I am now limitlessly patient," he raised his large sword again, "So come on! Try me!"

That was all the provocation Ronnie needed, "ATTACK!"

- Supplemental to Zai's Profile -

Power: Infuriate - Zai's raging temper can be mentally transferred, allowing himself to keep calm while his enemies lose their rational thought to rage that is not even theirs.

On command, the other Loyalist robos opened fire. Zai's large blade could not be circumvented as it blocked and deflected even the strongest of attacks. The force of the blasts alone could have knocked any lesser robo off its balance, but Zai's Metal Ox was heavy and well-stanced enough to stand his ground.

Ronnie fired blindly, unable to think straight enough to formulate a decent strategy, and Wade could see it in his words and actions, so he took over, "Armor, move in to close range!"

The Metal Bear and Defender robos fired one more volley each and charged in. Wade's intent was to force Zai to defend against close and ranged attacks at the same time, overwhelming his defenses and opening up vulnerabilities. As the more armored robos closed in, Zai raised the broad side of his sword horizontally in front of him with one hand on the hilt, the other against the blade. The Defender, being the faster moving of the two charging in, smashed his full weight against the sword, but as expected, Zai stood strong. Zai's main defense against incoming ranged attacks was distracted, providing an opening for the other robos to hit with their weapons. Zai's deflective and reinforced armor, however, was enough to significantly mitigate the damage he took from the attacks.

The Metal Bear smashed in with the Defender, combining his weight into the force of the push, and Zai strained to hold against the weight of both heavy robos while still taking fire. It just needed a little more, so Wade commanded to the Swift robos, "Twins, you too! Push him!" and continued firing his own weapon along with Ronnie and the Juggler that was with them, though they were making sure to avoid causing friendly fire. If they could at least push him through the doorway, they could get past him, even if they couldn't defeat him outright.

The twin Swifts stopped firing and zipped in to push against the blade with the other two robos. They were not very large or heavy, but just a little more force was all that was needed to push Zai off balance. To complicate his situation, the Metal Bear used a weapon in his hand to put a point-blank shot directly into Zai's knee, causing it to buckle and forcing Zai to kneel in place.

Zai grunted and forcefully flipped his sword so the toothed edges were now facing himself and the robos that had been pushing against it. The four of them stumbled forward as the flat of the blade was pulled from under their pressure, and with one powerful horizontal slash, Zai threw all of them back, each with deep, jagged cuts in their armor. They struggled to get up, clearly weakened. Zai slowly stood back up to regain his stance amid deflecting further attacks from the three other robos.

Wade formulated a new plan, issuing an order to the Juggler that was with him, "Pull his gaze high, I'll try to vanish behind him." The Juggler gave a nod of affirmation and ran in towards Zai. Zai saw him coming and slashed his heavy sword again. The Juggler easily avoided it with a high upward jump, backflipping in the air and firing his weapons down towards Zai's headpiece. Zai raised his sword to block the attacks and caught a glimpse of Wade appearing and vanishing in his peripherals. He anticipated what Wade was trying to do and stuck his sword behind himself just as Wade vanished and reappeared in the exact place Zai had stabbed.

There was a moment's pause as Wade looked down and saw the blade protruding from his own armor. With a turn and a yank, Zai pulled Wade back in front of him, removing his sword from Wade's robo, still shrugging off attacks from Ronnie who was still firing blindly with rage. As Wade lay on the floor grunting loudly in his attempts to move, Zai raised his sword to bring it down on him and finish him off.

The blade was knocked aside by the only robo in the group strong enough to match the Metal Ox for strength. The Metal Bear had forced itself to its feet and parried the large blade on its flat side, then threw himself directly into Zai's robo. The Metal Ox dug its feet into the floor to keep from being thrown off balance, and the Bear threw several forceful underhand punches into Zai's less armored mid-section.

Zai retaliated by bringing his good knee up into the Metal Bear's already damaged middle, and followed with a downward elbow strike to the back to weaken his push. With another kick and a push back from Zai, the Metal Bear sprawled out on the floor with the Swifts, the Defender, and Wade's Glaive. Ronnie stopped firing his weapons, finally beginning to get a grip on himself, and raised his arms to try channeling his weakening power again. Zai felt himself weakening, but his robo was strong enough to raise his large cannon again and fire another wide blast wave through the room. Ronnie was knocked back again and anything in the room that was not already broken sure was then.

When Ronnie's ears stopped ringing again, he picked himself up and found himself in human form. He saw Wade and the other three that were on the ground also in human form. The Juggler had been knocked out of the air and was the only one still in robo form, and everything was quiet again. Zai stood tall and planted the tip of his sword in the floor again. His robo was still intact with only moderate damage.

Wade and the Loyalists got to their feet, backing a safe distance away. Wade turned to Ronnie over his shoulder, "Any ideas?"

Ronnie let out a frustrated sigh, "Back out. Regroup outside."

Defeated, the other six lowered their guard and moved towards the door from where they had entered. Ronnie remained for a moment, asking Zai, "Can you at least tell us what it is Strike is after here?" Zai remained silent, which provoked a little more anger out of Ronnie, but he couldn't do anything to act on it in his current form. With another grumble of frustration, he turned to follow the other Loyalists out of the building. Almost as soon as he had left the room, all the anger he had felt vanished, and rational thought returned to him again.

* * *

From his position at the window, Nick pretended to surveil the area near the generator for potential threats. He knew none would be there, as he was in fact part of the threat he was supposedly looking for. Switch sat away from the window against the wall, keeping his hand to the side of his head to monitor comm traffic. He reported to Nick, "Wolves are all in position, awaiting orders." Nick nodded, checking down his sights again, rehearsing how he planned to take out the enemy marksmen quickly and efficiently when the time came. After a few moments, Switch reported again, "Word from command. We are on a ten minute delay, then we are clear to take out the target."

Nick nodded again, "Spread the word to the squad. We strike in ten minutes."

* * *

In the ops center, Lynx was almost completely cut off. With all of the squad leaders and other officers either eliminated or reverted to human form, he no longer had communications with them. The only communicator left was Switch in Wolf squad, but he had no further orders to relay. All he and his staff could do was browse recordings from cameras throughout the dome, though it was not providing them with much information. One traffic camera recording caught the eye of one of the operators as he looked through it, viewing a street near the far side of the tower from where the battle had taken place. He rewound the video and moved it frame by frame. The image was unclear, but there was definitely a blur of white.


End file.
